One fancy goldfish can live quite comfortably in a 20-gallon tank. But if you’re still looking to give your fish away, you can try calling local pet stores (the smaller shops, rather than the large chains, may be more willing to accept new fish), Craigslist – even a close friend or family member. Sadly, I’m not familiar with many places to give away fish. If anyone else has first-hand experience, feel free to drop your suggestions. 🙂 You can also try asking your question on other goldfish forums (there’s a really good community over at Koko’s Goldfish – you can try your question there).

I’m so sorry to hear about your poor oranda, Maryum! If your goldfish has ich, I’d really highly recommend picking up some aquarium salt. Not only can you use it to treat ich infections, but it can help improve oxygen flow whenever your goldfish is stressed out or sick – especially when medicating the water!

When treating hospital tanks with medication, I generally like to hold off on feeding (to prevent waste and ammonia buildup in the tank). If I do think my fish will need the additional nutrients, I will feed a small amount about once per day. You can add a few drops of Garlic Guard or something similar to the food, letting it soak for a few minutes before feeding – this may help improve recovery of both the parasite and bacterial infection (plus, garlic juice is wonderful for enticing fish to eat if they won’t eat otherwise). If your goldfish is too weak to swim for its food, you can try handfeeding it (make sure to always rinse off your hands well to remove any residue from soap, grease, or lotions – preferably, it’s better to use latex gloves).

By the way, I do really suggest thinking about buying a larger tank for your fish. One goldfish should really be housed in 75 liters or more (you can read about why in my goldfish tank article here). 15 liters is pretty small for a goldfish, even if you’re just keeping one.

Also, if you haven’t done so already, you should try testing the water for ammonia and nitrite with a freshwater test kit – your goldfish can’t recover if the water quality is poor. You’ll want both ammonia and nitrite levels to stay at 0ppm (parts per million). You can read about water testing here. Though the water may appear healthy, it may still contain high levels of unhealthy water parameters that will make your fish sick. Ammonia and nitrite spikes can be pretty much invisible but just as deadly – you won’t know if your tank water has unhealthy levels of either unless you test the water for both parameters. If you can’t get a freshwater test kit, I recommend taking a sample of the water and having it tested at your local pet shop.

Let me know how your goldfish is doing and if there’s anything else you need help with! I really hope your fish can recover. :/ Good luck with treatment!

Glad you’re finding the website helpful, Samantha! I’ve actually been using java fern, anubias, and ludwigia in my goldfish aquariums without any problems! I have both the java fern and anubias attached to driftwood (though from my experience, anubias is much easier to attach than java fern – the roots are much thicker and seem to get a better hold on the wood). If you do decide to try anubias, you can simply attach the plant with fishing line or thin nylon thread to a piece of driftwood or large rock (with lots of crevices). I’ve personally used nylon thread with really good results. It generally takes the plant about a month or so to get a good hold (but I like to leave mine for a bit longer – about two months, just to ensure the roots have had enough time to branch out).

Keep in mind that both java fern and anubias plants grow a bit slow. Ludwigia is pretty fast growing and likes to be planted in the actual substrate – but this plant requires lots of light (it will die quickly if you don’t have at least 5000-7000K full-spectrum lighting – you’ll know if the plant needs more light if you suddenly see lots of leaves floating along the water surface). The ludwigia does have very pretty pink and red leaves though. Both java fern and anubias do very well in poor lighting, if that’s something you don’t want to have to worry about.

Other plants your goldfish may not eat include hornwort, anacharis, vallisneria, and swordplants. While I don’t have experience growing these, I’ve heard great things about them. Duckweed and water sprite may also be good options – goldfish are known to snack on these, but from what I’ve heard, both duckweed and water sprite grow too quickly for this to be a problem.

There are more goldfish-friendly plants I’m sure, but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Let me know if you have any more questions, and good luck aquascaping! 🙂

Hello Andre! Glad you found the website helpful. For common goldfish, I’d recommend only one or two in a 200-liter tank. These fish are really best suited in an outdoor pond though. If you’re just starting out, you should consider the fancy varieties – black moors, fantails, and ryukins are excellent choices because they’re so hardy. You can fit about 3 to 5 fancy goldfish in 200 liters of water comfortably, but I’d suggest starting off small – don’t get too many fish at once until your aquarium is more established. And before buying any new fish, set up your aquarium a few weeks in advanced so the nitrogen cycle has time to run its course. If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask! I really hope you enjoy the goldfish hobby! 🙂

Hi Remi – how’s the water? Did you test for ammonia and nitrite? Did you add any new fish to the aquarium recently without quarantining first? It’s hard to really determine the cause of the problem without more information. Since your goldfish is clearly not constipated, my best guess would be either a bacterial or parasitic infection.

If you didn’t add any new fish or plants in the last couple months (and there’s no clear outward signs of parasites), it might be bacterial. Of course, some parasites are not clearly visible (gill flukes and internal parasites like tapeworms, for example). Does your goldfish look very thin (thinner than usual)? That could be a sign of an internal parasite infection (transparent white fecal waste can also indicate internal parasites) – a medication containing praziquantel is really effective for this (and extremely gentle on your fish). I’ve had great results with PraziPro (and if your goldfish does have tapeworm, you can usually see the dead parasites leave the body on the second day after treatment).

Something like gill flukes can be a little bit harder to treat – mostly because the medication won’t affect the eggs flukes leave. So, after you thought your aquarium was “successfully” treated for flukes, any leftover eggs can hatch and cause another fluke outbreak. If you noticed your goldfish scratching on objects before he got sick and started floating on his side, there’s a good chance your goldfish may have flukes if there’s no other symptoms of external parasites. I’d use something like Paraguard, which can be a gentler alternative to some formalin-based medications. It also treats some bacterial and fungal infections (and if your goldfish does in fact have external parasites, he could very well get secondary bacterial or fungal infections on the wounds the parasites leave behind).

But don’t just pick up any medication hoping it will make your goldfish feel better without knowing exactly what disease your goldfish is suffering from. There’s a chance your goldfish may not have parasites at all and instead may have a bacterial infection. Or, if there’s high levels of ammonia in the tank, your goldfish could be suffering from ammonia poisoning (or nitrite poisoning if there are high nitrites). That’s why I suggest to test the water first before you buy anything. If either ammonia or nitrite are above 0ppm, you’ll want to change 30-50% of the water daily until levels go back to 0. You can read more about water testing in my guide here.

Your goldfish will have a better chance of recovery in healthy, clean water!

That’s so awesome, Sandra! My local pet shop was having the very same sale actually. Sadly, I wasn’t able to pick up another aquarium for myself. But I’m sure your goldfish are going to really like their new home. 🙂 They all sound beautiful – especially the ranchu! I love it when goldfish are so young – they’re always so curious and fun! Plus, you get to watch them grow. It’s amazing how big goldfish can get in a couple months!

Hi Joshua,

I’m so sorry you had such a terrible experience! Some medications can be really harsh on fish, especially when your goldfish is already so stressed out and sick from disease. It’s likely your goldfish was just too far gone for the medication to work or the medication was too harsh on your fish’s weakened immune system. In many cases (unless you’re facing parasites or really tough bacterial/fungal infections), you don’t need to treat the aquarium with medication at all – just daily water changes, a little aquarium salt, and a healthy environment with fresh water and oxygen is enough to get your goldfish feeling better.

Still, I’m really sad to hear how things turned out for your fish. It’s never easy to lose a pet. But it sounds like your goldfish lived a happy 4 years, right?