Advice on new aquarium (5 gallon)

Well good thing you can asking questions!!

For starters a 5.5 gallon tank is not a good size for goldfish. These guys get really big and require 10 gallon each, minimum. That being said it will have to do for now, but if you want healthy happy goldfish that can reach their potential (both in size and life span of 15-25 years or so) then you will need to already start thinking of a bigger tank.

Part of the problem is that goldfish create a lot of waste and therefore need more water volumn to deal with it. The otherthing is of course their size. Fancy goldfish will get to be 5+ inches and really heavy bodied.

Now don't go and add anything else to the tank. It will just push the limits too much. Plus goldfish are very good at eating anything that fits in their mouths. At least you chose a fish species that requires a similar environment, but still not in that small tank, please (White Clouds are my favorite fish by the way).

Anyway, buy a testkit for ammonia and nitrites at least and do many water changes, especially at the beginning. Ammonia and nitrites are poison to fish and in a tank that size will build up fast. you will probably be wanting to do a water change at least twice a week with a good water conditioner.

Good luck and keep asking more questions.

if you do not want to buy a test kit you can always go to your LFS and have them test that water for you, that is what i do.

Well the longer they are in the smaller tank the more they will end up with stunted growth. Your water changes sound great but you really don't need to waste money on waste eliminator or cycle. Just get a good water conditioner to get rid of chlorine and chloramine. By doing a twice a week 10-20% (easy on a 5 gallon) you will be eliminating the waste buildup anyway.

You should be able to get away with a 20 gallon tank which seems large but doesn't have a huge footprint. Start measuring them now to see if they will fit. If you get at least this size tank you will have nice big rolly goldfish.

I can't really say how long you should wait. Ideally I would say get it tomorow but I know that isn't realistic so I would say try not to let them get much above 2.5 inches before you start to plan.

Then you can use the small tank to get a small school of white clouds and some shrimp. That will be a fun little tank as well.

A 30 gallon tank would be a good tank. It would leave you with enough room for when the fish get full-grown and it's a reasonable size.

I would really recommend getting a test kit with everything in it. I use the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals test kit, and it does a good job.

Graeme

I advise you too to get a bigger tank and if you plan on adding some plants, then you should buy some with rough leaves so they won't eat'em.
I try to use as little as possible it is chemicals. If you change the water as you wrote and you use an adequate air supply with internal filter, then things should be going just well.
Don't overfeed them. If your water get's blured, don't panic 'cause that means that you'll have to change the water, or wash the entire tank or just the filter.
As I live in Romania (Europe), I think that the products that we use for maintaining our tanks are not so similar to those you use over the ocean.
I hope that I helped you a little too and I wish you just the best.

If your fish are gasping at the top of the tank, like they are trying to get air, it means that you have a severe ammonia problem.

You need to do very frequent water changes, at least once a day, maybe twice, of a pretty good portion, but not all of, your water (because changing all of it would interrupt the process. You don't want to remove ALL of the ammonia and starve your growing bacterial colonies, but you don't want your fish to suffer, either...). I, when I cycle with fish, change about 20-30% a day, unless I have overfed or had a death, at which point I change about 50%...

Orandas tend to grow a little slower than say, a comet, but they still shoot up like weeds, and you will be needing a new tank as soon as you can afford one. I am a little more cautious than some and say "the more water, the better"... I, for a very long time, had a 55 gallon tank with a single oranda, a striped raphael, and a plecostamus. However, a 30 gallon for a pair is not unreasonable, and it should take them a while to grow out of something of that size. Just be willing to upgrade the tank or trade in the fish whenever you look in the tank and you have a fish the size of a coffee cup looking out at you with a look that says "I need a pond, please".... Orandas and other goldfish species live a LONG time, so be prepared to have a pet that will outlast your dogs and cats if you treat it well. My oranda (that was the size of a softball, by the way) was 17 years old when a power outage in the winter finally claimed him, the raph was 14, and the pleco was 2 and over a foot long already....