Lots of tank size questions, but I'm looking for advice for my specific situation.
So I've tried searching this, but unfortunately when talking goldfish there are so many tank questions that are closer to "can I use a 1 gallon bowl or do I need a 5 gallon tank?" or "do I need a filter or can i just use the drops?".
Right now I have a 90 gallon (48x18x24) with a 20 gallon sump (bag filter then bio media) and a sponge filter in the tank (not really needed for filtration, but they like to play in the bubbles). The entire surface is covered with water lettuce, that I need to remove weekly or else the tank goes dark. In general my nitrates never go up (from the plants), but I still do WCs weekly for freshness.
I have 7 fancy goldfish, the first of which I got ~10 months ago and the most recent I got last week. They are in the range of 3-5" BODY length now, but getting fatter and bulkier by the day. So I'm starting the process of deciding on the home that they can get to their full / massive potential in. There are 2 ryukins, 3 dragon eyes / moore, 1 oranda, and 1 pearlscale. When I get a bigger tank I'd also add probably 2 ranchu (at least..).
The spot in my house that I've claimed is a wall in the basement, it has a little hall to a bedroom on one side, and a gas fireplace I've never turned on on the other side. It's about 12 feet total, but I want to leave space on both sides so I was thinking 8' length. My two questions come into width and height. For width I'm torn between 24, 30, 36". The upsides for wider are more room, more volume (for stability), and the cost difference is negligible, the downside is it creeps into my living room space and the WAF (wife acceptance factor) and seems harder to clean due to reaching. For height I was thinking 24", but again could do 30 or 36. The upside of height is it is more space and volume and it takes no extra space in the room, but harder to clean and MUCH more expensive (for 24 vs 36 you get 50% more water but 100% more tank cost).
So, for massive fancy goldfish, thoughts on a 96x36x24 (what I'm leaning towards)? is the width a waste could I go 24"? Would I want more height to spend the money on 36" (the tank is $4000 instead of $2000, but the stand and filtration wouldn't be that much different)??
The above situation takes 90% of the weight in my decision. The last 10% is 3 months or 25 years down the road if I am sick of goldfish and want to make something different (like predator with gars / arows or cichlids or rays or a large puffer), would I be stupid to not do different dimensions? (I'm guessing a ton of people are going to say go 4' width for gars / arows, I think that is mostly out of the question with wife approval....probably...).
For filtration I was thinking sump with bag filter and bio media, and then also wanted to do a big sump with grow lights to grow duckweed (mostly to feed the goldfish, but also do suck up nitrates).
Thanks for reading the long thread!!!
So I've tried searching this, but unfortunately when talking goldfish there are so many tank questions that are closer to "can I use a 1 gallon bowl or do I need a 5 gallon tank?" or "do I need a filter or can i just use the drops?".
Right now I have a 90 gallon (48x18x24) with a 20 gallon sump (bag filter then bio media) and a sponge filter in the tank (not really needed for filtration, but they like to play in the bubbles). The entire surface is covered with water lettuce, that I need to remove weekly or else the tank goes dark. In general my nitrates never go up (from the plants), but I still do WCs weekly for freshness.
I have 7 fancy goldfish, the first of which I got ~10 months ago and the most recent I got last week. They are in the range of 3-5" BODY length now, but getting fatter and bulkier by the day. So I'm starting the process of deciding on the home that they can get to their full / massive potential in. There are 2 ryukins, 3 dragon eyes / moore, 1 oranda, and 1 pearlscale. When I get a bigger tank I'd also add probably 2 ranchu (at least..).
The spot in my house that I've claimed is a wall in the basement, it has a little hall to a bedroom on one side, and a gas fireplace I've never turned on on the other side. It's about 12 feet total, but I want to leave space on both sides so I was thinking 8' length. My two questions come into width and height. For width I'm torn between 24, 30, 36". The upsides for wider are more room, more volume (for stability), and the cost difference is negligible, the downside is it creeps into my living room space and the WAF (wife acceptance factor) and seems harder to clean due to reaching. For height I was thinking 24", but again could do 30 or 36. The upside of height is it is more space and volume and it takes no extra space in the room, but harder to clean and MUCH more expensive (for 24 vs 36 you get 50% more water but 100% more tank cost).
So, for massive fancy goldfish, thoughts on a 96x36x24 (what I'm leaning towards)? is the width a waste could I go 24"? Would I want more height to spend the money on 36" (the tank is $4000 instead of $2000, but the stand and filtration wouldn't be that much different)??
The above situation takes 90% of the weight in my decision. The last 10% is 3 months or 25 years down the road if I am sick of goldfish and want to make something different (like predator with gars / arows or cichlids or rays or a large puffer), would I be stupid to not do different dimensions? (I'm guessing a ton of people are going to say go 4' width for gars / arows, I think that is mostly out of the question with wife approval....probably...).
For filtration I was thinking sump with bag filter and bio media, and then also wanted to do a big sump with grow lights to grow duckweed (mostly to feed the goldfish, but also do suck up nitrates).
Thanks for reading the long thread!!!
