looking for goldfish mates

[angelboyblue3]

Im looking for a good bottom feeder or alge cleaning fish for a goldfish tank. I have a bit of salt in there so I dont think snails or clams will do. I have had a pleco and he did really well until I kicked up all the gunk from under the gravel. He died. He was very very healthy until after that. sniff. any suggestions?

 

[Tiffi]

How big is the tank and what fishes are in there?

 

[TomK2]

My wife puts bristlenose pleco's in with her Goldies. They seem happy. Most recently she tried an albino pleco, because I took her bristlenose. Its so small I can't tell what kind it is.

 

[Zagz]

I have goldies and can attest to the tank size being a big factor in what you can keep. BN plecos are good for smaller tanks, common plecos are good for larger tanks. If your tank is large enough to support it, dojo loaches are good with goldies, they prefer sand or small gravel though. Salt doesn't work well with loaches so take that into consideration. Also with goldfish they are messy so it is necessary even with a larger tank to do regular pwc's and gravel vacs. Sorry about the loss of your pleco.

 

[angelboyblue3]

I had two albino bristlenose plecos. Its a 35 gallon and I have mostly small orandas and ryukin. My plecos were doing well and growing very fast. I just dont know what happened. sniff. Perhaps I will try another one.

 

[jsoong]

I just added 2 hillstream loaches to my 7 fancies. They seem fine but hide a lot so hard to tell. Also Hillies are not necessarily good algae eaters, & need cool water with high O2 content. Mine had not make much of a dent on the algae.

I will be trying a bristle nsoe next.

 

[nomadofthehills]

Also Hillies are not necessarily good algae eaters, & need cool water with high O2 content.

so do goldfish lol...

 

[degbowl]

I keep britle nose plecos with my goldfish. They seem to get along fine. I also have a few albino corys.

 

[Alvarez]

In my sons 20 I can't put anything with his globe eye calico. I have tryed a bubble eye and he died, then I tryed a pair of small black moors and they died also. The water is very clear and we are doing PWC and gravel vac every week.

Have globe eyes been known to attack or do you think he may be pooping them to death? The globe eye made it about a week and the moors made it less than a week. (3 days or so)

 

[jsoong]

Alvarez, you might want to start your own thread in the sick fish forum, gets better exposure that way.

From what you say, I think water quality is the prime suspect. Fancy golds are not know to be killers. Sure it is possible for them to out-compete a tank mate. Eg. the bubble eyes & celestrial eyes are almost blind, so is rather slow in finding food. If you keep those with a comet or even a metallic fantail, they won't find enough food & can starve to death.

This however, takes more than 2-3 days. A rapid demise of new fish (assuming that they are healthy to start with) is probably a water quality issue. You need to check your tank parameters (pH, NH3, NH4, NO3, etc). Depending on your PWC amount & how much mess the fish makes, your tank parameters might have drifted way off normal. The old fish, slowly acclimatizing to this, will be fine, but newly added fish will not survive.

 

[zenkatydid]

it also could be sick fish from the shop. try buying at a different shop.

 

[FMJnaX]

I have a golden apple snail and a clown pleco in with my two goldies (ryukin and fantail) in my 29 gal tank. Absolutely no problems.