What can we do to stop new fish biting our old fan tale gold fish??

[t875]

We have a fan tail fancy goldfish and we did have another gild fish (silver) but it unfortunately died from we think swim bladder we had it nearly 3 years!

We got two new fish in the week, one was a small silver goldfish with a red streak which is fine and leaving our fan taled gold fish alone, but the other one is a single taled gold fish and we think is biting the fan tale fish, her fins tale are looking shredded.

We obv dont want to give the fish back as the kids love it, but what can we do?

Thinking of getting more hiding places and plants maybe to help situation so the fan tale doesnt feel exposed to the other fish.

Any ideas/advise would be great!

Thanks

How big is your tank? 3 years isn't a very long life for a goldfish it could be that your tank is overcrowded and so your goldfish are getting aggressive with each other. Have a read of this, it will explain more.

Plants are great for stopping aggression because they break up the sight line but it only works if the fish have enough space to get away from each other.

Single tail goldfish and fancy goldfish don't mix very well as the single tails are much faster and bigger and so can easily out-compete the fancies for food. Fancies are a lot more delicate, more picky about food and more likely to get ill so they are best kept with other fancy goldfish.

Hi, EauRouge!

The tank is 30 litres?? ah right, sorry..its been the longest we have had a fish so seemed a long time for a fish.. it was our first, the fan tail is still going very strong though.

Yeah from reading forums it looks like we might be better off getting a bigger tank.

Weve been talking though were thinking of putting the single tail in a tank of its own with another single tail as it is quite aggressive. Maybe though things might settle down.

Ive read about a divider, how would you devide a tank?

Thanks for your reply

Single tails are better off in ponds really, they need such big tanks but if you've got room for 2 massive separate tanks then go for it! :)

You can buy tank dividers, they are usually just sheets of perspex with holes in to help the water flow. Breeders use them a lot but you could use one with your tank. You'd need about a 6 foot tank though for all your fish.

Just had a thought about the tank dividers, they would restrict the swimming space a fair bit so you'd probably need a tank much bigger than 6 feet if you wanted to divide it. Fish can get muscular problems if they don't have the space to move around properly.

Three years is very young, my oldest fish is ten and still gleaming and thriving. Get the biggest tank you can afford/fit :)

Thanks so much for your advise and help EauRouge and Peeriebear!

We brought a tall plant today and a small cave and the single tail is going in and out of it a lot, also seems to be leaving the gold fish alone a bit more today. I think the gold fish is giving as good as its getting.

Perriebear how great your fish is 10!!

Thanks again!!