(Please note that the fish shown in the photo is only a representative of what an adult specimen would look like. The color may vary based on the age and sex of the fish you receive.)
Scientific Name: Carassius auratus
Common Name: Comet-tail Goldfish, Black Comet, Pond Comet
Adult Size: 14 inches
Life Expectancy: 14 years
Habitat: Asia
Minimum Tank Size: 15 gallon
Ideal Tank Conditions:
- Temperature Range: 65 - 72°F
- pH Range: 6.0 - 8.0
- Water Hardness: 5 - 19
Temperament: Peaceful
Diet & Nutrition: Omnivore; will generally eat all kinds of fresh, frozen, and flake foods. To keep a good balance, give them a high quality flake food every day. To care for your goldfish, feed brine shrimp (either live or frozen), blood worms, Daphnia, or tubifex worms as a treat. It is usually better to feed freeze-dried foods as opposed to live foods to avoid parasites and bacterial infections.
Breeding & Spawning: Egg layers that spawn readily in the right conditions. They can be bred in groups as small as five individuals, but they are very social animals and likely to breed in larger groups as well. Spawning generally begin when the temperatures are between 68° and 74° F (20°-23° C). Feeding lots of high protein food such live brine shrimp and worms during this time will also induce spawning. The female will drop tiny eggs which the male will then fertilize. The eggs will adhere by sticky threads to the plants or spawn mop. Spawning can last two or three hours and can produce up to 10,000 eggs. At this point, the parents will start to eat as many eggs as they can find. For this reason, it is best to remove the parents after spawning is complete.
Gender: During the breeding season, the male has white prickles, called breeding tubercles, on its gill covers and head. Seen from above, a female will have a fatter appearance when she is carrying eggs. It is impossible to sex Goldfish when they are young and not in breeding season, but generally the male is smaller and more slender than the female.