Questions on tanking common goldfish

[Iodizedfate]

I have two coworkers who are getting ready to move and the both have what I'm guessing are two common goldfish each. One of them has the two fish with a pleco in an unheated 10g or 20g tank (she's not sure) and the other has her 2 goldfish in a 2g tank or something small like that.

They have both asked me if I would take them because they know that I'm into fishtanks.

Here is my question.

I have a 55g tank and figured I could rehome them there until I have a proper home for them. I know that I can't afford to get a tank to fit them so the only option would be to find a new home for them.

Last night I was talking to my wife about it for the millionth time and she suggested that we just set up a stock tank (horse trough) in the garage and just make sort of an indoor, above ground pond.

What size tank would I be looking at to make potentially 4 common goldfish comfortable? I imagine that they are stunted from being in such small tanks and don't know how big they are or how old they are.

I want to spend as little money as possible on this and still have happy healthy fish.

Also I would find a home for the pleco because it wouldn't survive in the cooler water the goldfish need.

 

[Iodizedfate]

Also would I want a plastic tank or would one of the metal ones work fine too?

 

[jlk]

A big metal or plastic (plastic is cheaper) trough/tub with some type of filter would work temporarily. My mom actually keeps 1-2 commons in her horse troughs (no filter) & they manage to survive & grow. Cant tell her otherwise!!! Even a new intex/other type of kids pool with a filter would work as well (check out amazon). I would look for something thats holds atleast 200gals. I would def though look into rehoming them in a proper pond in the spring. Hope this helps!

 

[KaylNeko]

It's fairly common to keep a couple goldfish in the horse tanks. Opinions differ on whether it's good for the horses--for the fish, so long as it's only one or two....well, my horses can drain a 40 gallon tub in half a day if the automatic waterer is turned off, so they're getting plenty of partial water changes. The people that toss 15 or 20 in, yeah, they're going to lose a lot of fish, but a couple is supposed to work on algae, any bugs, and detritus.