Fancy Goldfish Tank

Well, 55 gallons should be good for these guys. Orandas are not really fast growing as far as goldfish go, so you'll probably never see them outgrow this tank.

I would recommend a rather straightforward setup. Plastic plants or silks (just to alleviate some of the problems associated with having plant eaters and plants in the same tank...). Regular gravel, or sand, if you wanna do something different (but don't ever plan on moving the tank if you put sand in, it's REALLY heavy and a pain to get out, plus, you'll scratch up the tank, so sand will need to be a permanent decision if you go that way...). You won't be needing a heater unless you have really cold winters and a bad furnace. Room temp should suffice for these guys.

Basically, just set up the tank, do a fishless cycle, then move your new friends out of their studio and into their penthouse! Not much more to say than that, I guess...

Oh, yes there is... Lots and Lots of filtration. Whatever the lfs told you to put in, double it. It's worth the extra expense to cut down a little on your maintainence, believe me. Give the tank lots of filtration and lots of aeration in the form of bubble-stones. Goldies are oxygen hogs and LOVE bubble stones....

They sound like our 3 goldfish. We got them a little over a year ago and it got me back into keeping fish...now 5 tanks and growing.

I'd also suggest heavy filteration. I'm using a Emporer 400 in their 29 gallon with a reverse flow powerhead UGF. This works pretty good for keeping the water clean. I also have a bubble bar along the back. You might consider going without the UGF in a larger tank.

For the substrate, I think sand looks nice, but as previously mentioned, it can be a pain in other ways. Fluorite also looks nice and is what I'd use for any new tank I was setting up with gravel. Just be prepared to vacuum up after them no matter what you choose.

Plants can be a bit of a challenge with goldfish. If you want live plants, go with something goldfish won't usually eat, like Java Fern, or something that grows fast and is hardy. Our tank has mostly water wisteria along with a few banana plants. If you want to go artificial, I'd recommend silk over plastic.

Lastly, I'd recommend one or two large ornaments. Fish love swimming in and out of them and it can give them a retreat if they need a rest. Ours love a tree stump style one.

Be very, very careful about the ornaments you choose for a goldfish tank. I had one of those caves from walmart in one of my earlier tanks(the neon one with the holes in it, ceramic...). I had a fantail goldfish that absolutely loved swimming in and out of it, until one day he swam in and got stuck. He drowned because his gills were stuck shut where his head was wedged in one of the holes (that 2 weeks earlier he could fit through...). Hey, I never said goldfish were bright or anything..... Be sure that any openings in the ornaments are either large enough for a growing fish to go through, or else have holes that are too small for your fish at their current size to go through...

An informative gold fish site to bookmark...

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/4468/toc.html

My GF seem to do very well with additional aeration in the form of a bubble wand. So, I don't go as overboard on the filtration end and double with the bubble wand which helps the gas exchange on the water surface.

As for feeding, my GF love blanched peas. Take some frozen peas, maybe 4 or 5, boil them for 30 seconds -- I've heard two rationales for this (1) it kills the surface bacteria on the peas, and (2) it helps them to sink -- then dice them up (I use a parsely shredder) and feed. You can do that once a week. GF also like veggies like lettuce and zucchini (although I'm no fan of zucchini so I try to keep it out of my house ). You can blanch these two foods, or I just leave the lettuce in my tank for a couple of days and it is what I use for them if I'm going away for a weekend.

If you haven't been properly welcomed to AQ, welcome, and come visit us in the goldfish forum....

Val