Looking for Compatible Tank Mates for Goldfish

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argonautica3

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Dec 15, 2011
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Hello everyone, im pretty new to all this and just wanted to say Hi and wanted to see if anyone could help me out.

So i have a 30 gallon tank with, well i guess let me start a little earlier than that. if you would like skip over the origin story scroll down until you see a break and then the words "SO, I GUESS"

I lived in a house on Long Island with a fish pond in the back. We had a buncha different koi in it, and last winter the freeze killed a lot and then the crane got ahold of a lot but i guess b4 the bulk of them died, they let out a lot of eggs and whatnot because when we started the spring cleaning of the pond, there was about 40+ very tiny fish. they grew a bit over the summer, some larger than others, and about early-mid september I had set up a 30 gallon tank in my room and towards the end of the month i had added 7 of the summer fry (who were about an inch of so in length) into the tank. i then purchased a small Shubunkin Fantail, Black Moor Goldfish and two pleco. things were going well. one of the pleco died about a week or two later in the night. not sure why really, everyone including he seemed to be good b4 and after.
then the move came. late november i had to move to PA. i filled up a 5 gallon bucket with their water and poked a few holes and added a small bubbler to give them some oxygen here and there throughout the trip. well once they were all added to the bucket. i went to wash my hand some something for a few minutes and when i returned, one of the goldfish (which mind you look a lot like teenager $.18 feeding fish so im not to sure what they really are now) had died. I was expecting loss with the move but not from the tank to an inch or so to the right. so with that unfortunate occurrence behind me, i set sail, well engine and tires, to PA. when we arrived one more fish had passed, sad, but at least it had only been one.
i set up the new tank, worried about the apparently high metal content of the water in PA, in my room and after the smoke, well cloudy water, cleared the survivors of the 2011 move were settling back into their home. Then about two or three nights later, another goldfish passed. i woke up to him attached to the intake of the filter. i figured it could be the stress of it all and like in a move hes the one guy that cant survive after a hefty trauma. after that though everything has seemed to level out, they get a little pissed after a water change about the next day they seem better than ever b4 kicking themselves for doubting me.

so, i guess we now come to my question. with the remaining 4 goldfish, 1 Pleco, 1 Shubunkin Fantail, and 1 Black Moor, what are compatible tank mates. I have seen a few things here and there about Goldfish needing to stay with other Goldfish, but if water temp, pH and whatnot all fit into the same ranges of the Goldfish, and the new additions are easy and peaceful, why wouldnt they be able to get on.
i have a few in mind that i have been doing a bit of research on, generically: cichlids, sharks, tetras, barbs, minnows, and a few others.
Can anyone help me out. if anyone has experience with keeping tropical freshwater fish in the same tank as Goldfish, or has any knowledge/insight that can help i would greatly appreciate it.
and also sorry for the rather long winded origin story. i promise to try and keep things a bit shorter int he future.
Thanks again to anyone who can help.
Argo
 

argonautica3

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Dec 15, 2011
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oh and also, i dont really plan on keeping the koi/Goldfish in this tank forever, we had the pond at the old house and plan on having another in about a year. so once the pond is in the ground, the majority of the fish will be in there with it. i have them in the tank now and just wanted to get some nicely coloured friends for them for a bit and then once the Goldfish are gone, the friends that i have added will get new friends. i say this because i know Goldfish like to grow, but im pretty sure they wont be reaching 18 inches in the next 12 months. i could be wrong though. lol. but please anyone who could shine a little light on my question would be of great help to me. :)

i also plan on getting a heater for the tank and plan on keeping it around 72-75 since ive seen that a few have said up to 80 or 82 and even 90 for Goldfish. im not going that high but i figured i could go higher than 68.
 

argonautica3

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Dec 15, 2011
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sorry for all the posting and all the stuff to read, its just all of this is in my brain and it is all running wild in there so i figure its better to have a few other brains to run the info through, hopefully, lol.
So this is my giant list of fish i think may be Compatible if anyone could say def yes or def not for me it would really help me out a lot to make the list smaller. i think i may be giving 3 or 4 of the fish to a neighbor. they have a big, i think 55 gallon thats just about empty and a pond. i think they have one or two in there now waiting for the meltdown to put in their pond. so yeah then ill have room.

Barbs - Gold Barb (Barbus schuberti),
Tiger Barb
Checkered Barb
Green Barb (Barbus schuberti),
Rosy Barb (Barbus conchonius),
Two Spot Barb (Barbus ticto).

Danios
purple passion danio
yellow long finned danio
danio tinwini
blue danio
red danio
Celestial Pearl Danio
zebra
leopard spotted
long-finned zebra
malabar danio

Tetras - some of the more boisterous -
Head and tail light Tetras - maybe
Penguin Tetra
Congo Tetra
Green Neon Tetra
Cardinal Tetra
Glowlight Tetra
Serpae Tetra
Bloodfin Tetra - (Aphyocharax anisitsi),
False Bloodfin (Aphyocharax dentatus)
Buenos Aires Tetra (Hemigrammus caudovittatus) - maybe, they will eat my plants.
Croaking Tetra (Coelurichthys microlepis) -

White Cloud Mountain Minnow (Tanichtys albonubes) -
Gold White Cloud

Sharks-
Red-finned shark - Rainbow Shark
red-tailed shark

Mollys - maybe

Guppy (Poecilia reticulata) - maybe

Platys - maybe

Rosy Bitterling - maybe

Pimephales (fathead minnows/rosy reds) - Fathead Minnow - Maybe

Corydoras - MAYBE NOT GOOD IDEA.
Panda Corydoras - maybe

SAEs (true ones!), - maybe

Sndlers - maybe

Sngels - maybe,

Harlequin rasboras - maybe

Pictus

Goby -
Candidius Goby
Bumblebee Goby

Gourami - Chocolate Gourami - Dwarf Gourami - Paradise Gourami - maybe there are a buncha gourami

Otos - Zebra Otocinclus - Oto (Otocinclus mariae) - Dwarf Oto (Otocinclus macrospilus)

Wimple (Myxocyprinus asiaticus) - Freshwater Batfish.

Bluefin Notho

Blue Lyretail

Dwarf pufferfish - pea puffer

and these are the Cichlids

Saulosi - which i think are Afra Cichlids if they arent the same then most likely the afra cichlids because they are ok in a 30 gallon.

and these are they maybes
Convict Cichlid
Red Zebra cichlid
Blue johanni cichlid

so anything anyone can let me know about the list would help greatly. hopefully its personal experience like, "i had three of these in with my Goldfish for years and they loved it" would be the best i could hope for, but ill take everything i can get.
thank you :D
 

vwill279

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Oct 7, 2011
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A 30 gallon tank should not even have 1 pond goldfish in it, let alone 4, and with the two fancy goldfish and the pleco you are WAY overstocked. Even if you give the pond goldfish to a neighbor, you are still overstocked with the fancies in there. They get BIG and 30 gallons is not nearly enough space for them. Also, no heater. Goldfish are cold water fish, and even though they might be able to survive warmer waters, they do better if the water temp is cooler. Many of the fish you have listed will be eaten by a large goldfish, and your goldfish will get probably 6+ inches in a 30 gallon and be stunted besides. Bumblebee gobies and pea puffers are way too tiny and are also not community fish - they are aggressive. Angels are also aggressive. Endlers are too small, as are most of the tetras and danios. Cichlids can be very territorial and require much warmer water.

Honestly, if you want a community tank, you should get rid of your goldfish. Then you can create a nice tank with many smaller fish. A lot of the fish you have listed though are not compatible with each other either, so make sure you do your research when picking species. www.aqadvisor.com is a great website to find out what will work for your tank size and which fish can work with each other. I recommend you peek at that.
 

missmeliss

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Aug 18, 2008
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No more tank-mates with 2 goldies in a 30. The tank is too small for the 2 fancies, so I wouldn't add anything else. I would get a bigger tank (55+) if you want to keep the fancies in a tank. Get rid of them if you want a community tank.

Sorry for the bummer news, but such is the world of fish keeping.
 

argonautica3

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Dec 15, 2011
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thank you. i created a list from doing some research and then compiling all the info from others while looking at a lot of goldfish compatibility threads from multiple sites and added it to that. its hard because a lot of people say you cant have danios and then others will say they have had them for years and some with barbs and so on, lol. i figure if i compile all the threads and make the one giant list, then eveyone could comment on it. i know fish from the list are not compatible with others from the list, but i figured with the giant list one would be ok with a goldfish even if its not ok with another from the list.
in my attempt to search every where to thin out my original list, i basically went and did the complete opposite. lol.
the aqadvisor is amazing, so thank you again for that. what was taking me a day or two at a time to figure out from an endless stream of fishy profiles took the aqadvisor about 8 seconds, lol. so thank you again for that. i feel like that should be a top link on google whenever anyone types in anything having to do with fish, lol.

also, i want to thank you for stating something and then for the most part giving a reason for it. lol. most threads i have read on most forums have senior members that are kind of tired of noobs i guess and they just kind of spout out "facts" in all bold and then thats it, so i want to say thanks for the quick reply, reading everything i had to say (which was a lot lol) and taking the time to actually answer.

side-ish note i guess, or maybe more of a follow up, the fish i still have are all relatively still pretty small, biggest guy being maybe 2 inches max and the others around 1-1.5 inches. if i could get a endler, tetra, danio or something along those lines that have a max size of 2 or so or less inches but arent tiny now, would they be okay-ish enough together for a few months? (i plan on ponding them when im able) I mean the goldfish i have now are prob around 7-8 months old and i am still breaking their food in half, lol. i guess question one is do you happen to know their growth rates? like they have grown slowly (even when they were in the pond) up until now, once they hit 10 months are they gonna have a growth spurt and double in size over night? lol like do they have a sort of puberty growth spurt like we do? and i guess question two is if i get one of those breeds that are larger than a food pellet is it safe enough to assume that they can be roommates for a few months and that i will not have a little undersea WWIII on my hands, lol.

all in all thank you again and if you happen to have any sort of an answer for what i have just babbled about it would be a great help. :)
 

argonautica3

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Dec 15, 2011
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oh and missmeliss and coach_z thank you too for the advice. :)

i do plan on re-homing and also an upgrade hopefully. its hard because i just had to move, in with my sister brother-in-law mother and father lol, and money and space are sort of limited. but hopefully i somehow find a way to get a sweet deal on a larger tank and that this winter isnt that ruff and that it is very short so the goldfish can get into the pond asap.

thanks again :D
 

vwill279

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Given the space, goldfish can grow quite rapidly. Seeing as how you've had them for 7 months and they're still only 2 inches, I would say the stunting has begun already. Stunting is bad for them because while their overall size doesnt continue to grow, their internal organs do, which can lead to a very early death. Given a good environment, some goldfish can live for 40 years or more. You really should wait until you have put the goldfish in a pond or given them away to get new fish since each fish you add will increase the already very high waste load on your tank and can cause even more stunting in your goldfish.
 
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