Newbie help.

[qazxc]

Came back from work yesterday to find out that Dd had won a goldfish at the fair. ( and yes DP is in the doghouse gor this, I would never had allowed this or got a pet without discussion and making sure we could rake care of it).
Thus morning I made a dash to the nearest pet shop. I know I will have to upgrade the tank but at the minute it's the best I could afford. It's a starter set and comes with filter pump. But I am not sure if I set it up right. The instruction just say to stick it on the back but I don't know if it should be submerged or if the out spout and wire need to be above the surface.
Is this right?
Water has been treated as per instructions and I cleaned everything before filling.

[bunnygeek]

The sooner they make it illegal for fair Goldfish the better! A few Councils have banned it but that's it. Sigh.

Anyway, with the filter outflow, you need it be breaking the surface. The more surface movement, the more oxygen you'll get in the tank. This is extremely important right now as you have an "uncycled" tank.

Have a good read about The Nitrogen Cycle and "New Tank Syndrome" as this can be a killer for fish.

Presuming this is a Common type Goldfish - you're looking at something that should be about 8" long, excluding tail fin, in 2 years - they need at least 150 litres or ideally a pond (ponds should be very large, not the itty bitty patio ponds). They're basically pond fish.

They're also extremely messy, basically a constant poop machine. Goldfish don't actually have a stomach, just a long modified intestine, so a lot comes out! With poop comes water quality issues - in an uncycled tank you're going to want to do small partial water changes every day. I highly recommend your DH get his hands wet sorting this as he brought in the fish in the first place!

I recommend getting a liquid test kit - NOT strips - as right now you'll want to keep an eye on ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels. Depending on your daughter's age - fishkeeping is an excellent science lesson! This is a good kit:
apifishcare.com/product/freshwater-master-test-kit

Worrying symptoms to watch out for from the fish is hanging at the surface gulping air, sitting on the bottom looking miserable, clamped fins, shredded fins with black edging, bright red sore looking gills or black/brown splotches appearing on their body - these are all signs of too much ammonia and/or nitrites in the water.

[qazxc]

Thank you.
So far so good. "Goldie" seems ok. He spent the first day hiding under the filter in the corner but is now coming out more and more to explore and swim around.
I know that goldfish are not the easy pet that most envisage, that they get huge and are very messy. It would not have been my pet of choice, but all we can do is endeavour to now give it the best life we can. DP is currently a hundred and fifty quid down buying aquarium and fish supplies, it's turning out to be an expensive game of Hook a Duck and life lesson for him.
Next on the agenda is sorting out feeding, how to get him to feed, how often should we feed? At the moment he is only tiny so a pellet is the size of his eyeball which we were told was the guideline for the amount of food to give?

[bunnygeek]

Yes, the eyeball size guide is good - they are very easy to over feed and and overfed fish = mucky water!