Hi
I bought two (cold water) goldfish three days ago from the fish section of a garden centre. This is my first time for owning fish as pets.

I keep them in a bowl, which takes about 5 litres of water. They have gravel on the bottom and two plants and a piece of driftwood (purchased from the same place) in the bowl. There is no filter as we were told that cold-water gold fish do not require a filter.

I used tap water to fill the bowl, which I treated with Aqua Safe. I feed them Tetra Fin (twice a day) flake food obtained from the same garden centre.

Now I noticed that they spent all their time at the surface of the water making little bubble sounds They are still eating well, because at first I though they may be hungry.

I tried to look on the net for an explanation of such behaviour, but could not find any. We are taking the water to be tested tomorrow, but I will appreciate it if anyone has any ideas on what might be the matter with them.


thanx

They aren't getting enough oxygen in such a small container, so they're hanging out at the top of the tank, where they have the best chance of getting a little bit of it. Two small goldfish should have maybe 10 US gallons of water (depending on size), and will eventually need more like 20 or 30. Bowls are especially bad because there's so much less surface area, so there isn't as much exchange of oxygen into the water. Goldfish produce A LOT of waste, and in a bowl they'll quickly foul the water and probably get sick and eventually pass away. Goldfish definitely need a filter, in fact they require more filtration than most fish! The only thing goldfish don't need is a heater (but some people still have them to prevent temperature fluctuations).

There's a great guide to goldfish care on this site, if you click here.

So your long-term choices are to return the goldfish (and maybe get a betta, if your house is warm enough and you do frequent water changes they'd be fine in the bowl) or get a bigger tank, I'd recommend 20 gallons so you don't have to upgrade as soon.

For now, change about 50% of the water each day (goldfish don't like big changes), and be sure to use a dechlorinating product, since chlorine can hurt fish. Twice a day might even be good for water changes in such a tiny container. Be VERY careful not to overfeed. I feed what my fish can eat in 2 minutes twice a day, but you could probably feed what they eat in 2 minutes once a day, or even every other day, for now... just to keep those harmful chemicals at lower levels. Fish can go with very little food for a very long time.

I hope all this new info wont scare you away from goldfish keeping... I got into it by starting out with a goldfish in a 1 gallon container, too.. I think a lot of us did things like that! Good luck with these guys!