Setting up of ornamental goldfish fish bowl

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Setting up of ornamental goldfish fish bowl

The ornamental goldfish fish bowl has been the preferred way of display of this pet in the East Asian countries specially in China.

Ornamental fish bowl has also become very popular in the Europe and Americas in the last century. With selective breeding a real wide varieties have come into existence and are being reared throughout the world.
Select smaller sized fantail, if you want to rear goldfish in your ornamental fish bowl.
Do not go in for fancy types like Bubble-eye, Celestial, Dragon-Eye,Moor, Veil tail or Oranda for your bowl as they grow big in size and are very delicate.
It will be better if you can put in a small size air driven gravel filter as goldfish are a bit messy and will churn up the water in the fish container.
First fix the the gravel filter to the filtering bed and fix the air stone and the air tube to the filter unit.
Then cover the filter bed up to one inch thick with gravel and on top of this place a layer of bigger stones.
Go in for finer gravel and large sized stones as the goldfish may pick up stones and may get them stuck in their mouth.
Have the decorations well rooted as they have the tendency to nibble at everything and uproot it.
You can feed the ornamental goldfish with flake or pellet feed.
Occasionally you can treat them with freeze-dried bloodworms or tubifex worms.
Gel diet food also has been found to be excellent food for fantail.
As the digestive system of the fancy types is a bit distorted they get the tendency of bloated stomach and swim-bladder problems.
Fan-tail - suitable for ornamental goldfish fish bowl
Ranchu - unsuitable for ornamental goldfish fish bowl
Black Moor - Unsuitable for ornamental goldfish fish bowl
Black Ranchu - unsuitable for ornamental goldfish fish bowl
It has been found that feeding the pet regularly with well cooked pea after removing the shell gives sufficient proteins as well as functions as a laxative.
Feed the pets twice daily and the feed must be just enough to remain for two minutes.
Never over-feed the ornamental pet and one of the family member should monitor it and feed regularly.
Siphon out 20% water and add treated water twice a week.
If the water is appearing murky, change the water more frequently.

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Once in a month empty the ornamental goldfish fish bowl, clean and refill. This will be explained in future posts.

Need for goldfish, betta ornamental fish bowl cleaning

Need for fish bowl cleaning → Required materials → Partial process → Total cleaning process

Regular ornamental fish bowl cleaning and water replacement is necessary to keep the ornamental fish in healthy condition.

By cleaning the bowl the excreted metabolic wastes are removed and the depleted minerals are restored.
Ornamental fish bowl cleaning, at least once in a week, is advised as the micro environment inside it is very small and gets upset very easily.

To have a healthy goldfish there must be healthy environment, right temperature, ideal food in correct doses and clean water. The pet must not be put under any form of stress.

As opportunistic pathogens are normally present in any water ecosystem, any slight stress causes the goldfish to fall sick.

Reasons for the need for periodic ornamental fish bowl cleaning

• The water inside gets easily affected by the metabolic and excretory wastes, as the volume of it is small.
• The metabolic wastes contain certain factors which on concentration stunt the animals, stop their growth and put them under stress.
• The side of the ornamental fish bowl requires cleaning as it will develop slimy growth of algae over a period of time, spoiling transparency.
• To prevent excessive and bothersome growth of algae, it is advisable to keep the fish bowl away from bright light and lighted windows.
• The excreted wastes collecting at the bottom may sometimes get churned up by the fish movement making the water cloudy and unhealthy.
• The excretion and the left-over food will be acted upon by bacteria continuously. Harmful ammonia may form and exceeding the tolerable levels it may harm the goldfish.
• Increase in the levels of nitrites will follow suit and the nitrite poisoning may occur which when unchecked may kill the ornamental fish.
• As bacteria will be growing on the waste, the oxygen demand in the container will keep growing and total depletion of oxygen and collapse of the ecosystem may occur with mass mortality of the fish.
• Further the ornamental fish will be absorbing calcium and other minerals present in the water for its activities.
• Unless the old water is removed and fresh one is added on to replace the depleted minerals, goldfish may become sick due to essential mineral deficiencies.
• If air filter is being used in the system, the filter may choke due to excessive wastes and its function gets reduced; it requires to be cleaned periodically.
• Due to evaporation of the water continuously, dried salt marks, as rings and bands, will appear on the side at the water edge. This will spoil the aesthetic appearance.

To have a healthy ornamental fish bowl system going periodic cleaning is very essential.

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