Hi all,

I have always wanted to put another kind of fish with my goldies. However, all employees at the LFSs said that goldfish cannot be put together with any other fish.
I searched on the net and realized that I can put white cloud mountain minnows with my goldies but, I do not like this kind of fish.

Few months ago, I stopped by my co-worker's house. Her house is full of aquariums and most of them house goldfish. I noticed that each goldfish tank has about 5-6 long fin rosy barbs (I did not know what kind of fish they are at this time).

I asked her what kind of fish is that and she told me what they are. She said that most people do not know that rosy barbs can be put together with goldfish. She also said that rosy barbs are hard to find in some areas. I tried to find some at the LFSs but, I could not. My co-worker gave me five later. They have lived with my goldies about four months without any problem. Moreover, they are so quick to be chased if a goldie wants to. They eat everything that I feed my goldies.


My long fin rosy barbs look like the following images but, they have better color.


I also have one cherry barb in my goldies' tank.









thanks all for reading.

Hi David,

Most people here will tell you the same thing--that's it's not good to put tropical fish in with gf because of different food and temperature requirements. Also because they might not be compatible.

At the moment, however, I have a small gf in a 20 gal with a female betta, a male platy and now some corydoras and they all get along fine and eat the same food.



In the past I had other common gf in with different trops and one of the gf got real sick with septicemia probably from overstocking the tank and stress. He was chased and got his fins nipped by a molly, a swordtail and maybe some of the tetras, too. So you do need to be very careful when you mix fish like that. Even if they look ok for awhile it could change. I check my fish everyday for signs of any problems as I'm sure you are doing as well--hope it keeps working out for you.

thats one of the problems with goldies, what ever they can get into there mouths they will.