Seems to be a bit of "new year blues" thing happening here at AC -- sorry to hear you're down on your fish.....I guess I would suggest considering....
+ Looking at other tanks and seeing if you can make improvements that will help your fish and help you have more fun
+ Upgrade to a larger tank (more options, plus kind of fun to go BIGGER)
...I was having a similar problem with my land hermit crabs, but got some good advice that helped me recapture the joy -- hope you can too!
i cant fit bigger into my home unfortunately, though i think 6 feet x 2 feet x 2 feet is considerably large to start with
not that i wouldnt love to go 8 x 3 x 3!
I'm sorry that you're going through a bad patch at the moment. I can understand your feelings about the goldies. Sometimes I spend several hours tankscaping the tank and then have the head gardener goldfish tell me that isn't where he wanted the plants. It is discouraging.
Do you have munchable plants in the tank (floaters) as well as those you don't want them to eat? Mine have left the plants alone since I put in "expendable" ones.
Don't throw in the towel, yet. Give it a couple of days. I'm sure that some inspiration will come to you
its all the spawning thats really pulling the whole apart, since i planted the plants in small glass bowls and then covered the gravel in them with larger stones its not been too much of an issue, and ive found my goldies really arent keen on cobomba so i have been using that. any and all other plants i put in there are ripped apart and eaten within 10-15 minutes of adding to the tank, so far these include eldodea, crypts, swords (they adore these and eat them so its just a bunch of stems within an hour or so of planting) ive even added duck weed by the handful and its gone by the time i get back with another handful from the tub outside.
ive never known anything like it, i feed them 3 times a day, and they get a mixed diet of saki hikari for breakfast, either saki hikari or frozen brine shrimp/daphnia/blood worm for dinner, and peas if they had pellets for dinner, or pellets if they had frozen for dinner. i also bring in live daphnia from the garden tub too which they love, but it lasts seconds.
i have gone to the extent of bringing in a water lily tuber from the garden, i cleaned it up a little, and have sunk it in the tank. at first every leaf it threw off the goldfish would rip apart and tear it of. i dont know how lilies grow but this one has now started to throw off several at a time and they are staying curled up, so far the goldies havent managed to eat these but they are only a few inches tall.
i want some green height in the tank if that makes sense. ive seen several on you tube which are like beautiful green jungles with goldfish in there. mine is like a baron landscape, its boring for me and the fish.
i have considered dropping the water level a bit and adding some water lettuce, but im pretty sure the little buggers would then eat all the roots :huh: mine seem to eat everything faster than it can grow.
Just a little fyi... check this link out it talks about the most depressing day of the year
(which incidently just passed), maybe those scientist are onto something.....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6847012/
think they may have something there, though i suffer with depression regularly. i also get very bored with things after a while, hence this tank has been used for goldfish, large barbs, a beautiful planted tropical community (i adored this, it was gorgeous, but we went on holiday and my in laws took care of the tank, when i came back i had multiple rotting dead fish, old food lying on the bottom of the tank, plants dead and dying, and i couldnt get it back to how it was) and now its back to goldfish. if i had the room i would have several tanks this size and have a planted community in 1, some large fish for my husband in another, and goldfish in another. my house is too small.
and to be honest, my husband doesnt share in my interest at all, which is starting to get to me aswell. all he wants are bala sharks, its the only fish he has ever been interested in. im considering selling my goldies to get some balas so he may actually like the tank and pay attention to it.
