Fish question

[KIMItheThreadSlayer]

Sadly one of our fan tails has died (we had two) can we get another one to go with the one we still have or will that not work?

I have a very tearful little boy at the moment

We had 2 fan tails and one died and we replaced it with 2 normal goldfish and they are fine. The smaller 2 did pester the older fan tail for a while but it soon put them in their place!

Thank you, we have quite a big tank and one fish looks lonely, however I do not want the remaining fish to be bullied by new fish or to bully new fish.

Thank you again

I have been told that it's not a good idea to mix fancy fish and "regular" goldfish. The normal fish are sleeker, faster and more likely to bully the inbred fancy fish.

We would get another fan tail.

Would not be till next weekend, and not until we are sure it would be ok to do so.
Small boy sobbing in bed now

Oh your poor DS

How did it die, did it have any symptoms? How old was it? If it died of a disease then it wouldn't be wise to add another fish until you have sorted it and made sure your surviving fish is healthy.

How big is your tank? Goldfish get very large and are messy so they need loads more room and much better filtration than most other fish.

TeamEdwardTango is right, fancy goldfish (the fat round ones) shouldn't be mixed with regular goldfish.

Could you put some white cloud mountain minnows in with it? They are nice little shoaling fish and not aggressive with other fish.

HERE

Thank you all.
No george showed no symptoms although he had been a bit slower the last day or so, but was swimming and eating.
No fin rot or any thing I could see.
We have had them for about two years, tank is clean, filter working well.
I have cleaned out the tank and Georgina is fine.
If we get another fish it will not be till the weekend just to make sure she is fine and is not sick.

DS2 feeling better today, he has been talking to Georgina as he fed her (does this every day bless him) and is now telling the hamster all about football!

Two years? Your fish was just a baby then, fancy goldfish should live about 10-15 years (longer for regular goldfish). How big was it? At 2 years they should be around 4 inches long at least. This might help you out- www.fishkeeping.co.uk/articles_12/keeping-goldfish.htm

Minnows and goldfish aren't a great combination long term, goldfish can get big enough to eat the minnows.

Glad your DS is feeling a bit better!

Thank you again.
We had a gold fish in a tank for 8 years (MIL won him at a fun fair much to my dismay) George the 1st.

I think I am going to pop in to the aquatic part of the garden center and get something to treat the tank with just in case although Georgina seems fine.

I really don't know what happened, tank was clean, they are not over fed, there was no visible sign of anything wrong.

Still the whole point of pets is to teach children about death..so says DP.

I wouldn't put any kind of treatment in the tank if you don't know what was wrong. If there were no outward symptoms then it could have been a bacterial infection or it could have been genetic since fancy goldfish are incredibly inbred to make them that shape so some of them are not destined for a long life

How big did you say the tank was?