As a kid I had 2 goldfish in a pretty large fish bowl. When I got them I was told to change the water every 2-3 days and to fill gallon jugs of water the night before so it would be truly room temperature when I changed the water. This bowl was very heavy, so you can imagine how much work this was. I did not really keep up with how often they said to change the water though. I think I did it maybe twice a week, but usually about once a week, or maybe every 5 days.
In talking to a friend who also had fish she said this was totally incorrect instructions and that I was actually putting the fish in shock every time I changed the water because I changed all of it as I thought I was supposed to do.
I've never had fish since because it was just too much work for so little reward. What is the real proper care for fish kept in a bowl?
Fish bowl is wrong to begin with for fish keeping.
No fish bowl is big enough to hold bare minimal water for fish, and its shape is also not good for gas exchange between the water and atmosphere.
Minimal tank size for keeping stable water conditions is 5 US gallons. Ten gallons is recommended.
(However, for goldfish, this rule does not apply. Goldfish are messy eaters, they grow to very large size and they produce tons of waste. Bare minimal for a single common goldfish is 40 gallon, and 55 gallon is needed for two. If it is fancy goldfish, then 20 gallon is the bare minimal for just one, 30 gallon is required for two).
A filter system is a must and it must be running 24/7 as long as you keep fish in the tank.
Water change in a well maintained aquarium should be done once a week and it should be called "partial water change". It is recommended not to change more than 30~50% of the total water in order to keep the water temperature, hardness, PH, etc. stable. Too large of a swing in any of the readings I just mentioned could shock and even kill the fish.
We have plenty of beginner articles for fish keeping in our library section. It can be more helpful if you read through them.
Oh my, thank you for that. I think I will let go of any lingering interest I had in having fish again. I could never afford such a tank and would probably never be able to have one in an apartment no matter how lenient the landlord was.
It's amazing those 2 fish I had lived for years seemingly happily even though I was doing everything completely wrong. I think my bowl was about 2 gallons. I guess even the people at pet shops have no idea what fish really need. Though, from a financial standpoint, it would not make sense to try to sell a family a tank that costs I don't even know how much when they are going to by 50 cent fish to put in it.
Goldfish are pretty hardy fish. They can live under less than ideal conditions for a while, but their natural life span is decades. Yep, decades. If they die any sooner than decades, it means their living conditions could be improved.
It really is not that expensive to set up an ideal aquarium. Initial investment for a high end setup could be a few hundred dollars, but after that the only cost would be fish food and water conditioner which are both fairly cheap and can last for a long time. It is much cheaper than owning a dog or cat as pet.
Personally I prefer small sized tropical fish, since I can have more of them in the same sized tank compare to having goldfish. The only extra equipments to set the tank up as tropical is a heater and a thermometer.
A few hundred dollars... That would probably take me a couple of years to save unless I took a few months off of dance lessons, which is not happening. And then there is the whole landlord issues. In my town about 90% of apartments are not pets of any kind, which would technically mean you could be in trouble for even having a little fish bowl, and would almost certainly be evicted if you were caught with a fish tank.
I would have to really, really love fish to make such a huge investment, and find a place to live that would allow it. Chances are there is nowhere in this town that would allow it and be even remotely affordable. It seems like most people have to be able to own their home in order to have pets.
