My Inspiration
One reason I started raising Goldfishes in the first place was because of my younger brother, Dillan. We had a 40-gallon tank empty sitting in the corner of my parents' basement, and I asked him, what kind of fish should we raise in the tank. In that tank we used to raise Angel fishes. As the years went by, we got too busy to keep up with the maintenance and decided to rehome our fish. Eventually we decided we wanted to raise fish again. My brother mentioned he wanted to try and raise Goldfishes. I bought my first ever Goldfish from CoastGemUSA in 2022. It was a Godzilla NK Thai Tiger Oranda, five inches long, and a male. After he arrived in the mail I fell in love with him. So much so that I ordered another Goldfish a month later. I ordered another Goldfish off the same website and bought another Godzilla NK Sakura Thai Tiger Oranda. I named the male Lucian and the female Aurora, after two characters from The Originals television show.
My inspiration started off with Luke's Goldfish. I first noticed him when he started off making content of his goldfishes on social media platform TikTok in 2022. He gained huge popularity on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. He started off making funny videos of his goldfish, later making informational videos about goldfish. I noticed that he had incredibly beautiful Goldfishes and wanted more. However, when I went to his website, he did not have any orandas available at the time. In one of the videos, Luke mentioned Jimmy’s Goldfish and that he had very high-quality selections. Luke received a Goldfish from Jimmy. Which is why when deciding where to purchase another goldfish, I decided to get another goldfish from Jimmy.
When I ordered my Black Oranda from Jimmy, my brother named her Apollo. She was shy and reserved. My Goldfish Lucian had little interest in humans unless he knew you had food. Other than that, he would keep to himself or else play with Aurora in the tank. Aurora was the complete opposite. She loved being handled by humans, being fed by hand, and loved kissing people’s hands. If you held her, she would not squirm. Apollo eventually learned to do the same from Aurora. She would be the first to swim up to the tank to meet the human that entered the room or to whomever got close to the tank. She would dance with joy as soon as she saw someone entering the room. If someone got close to the tank, she would mistakenly think it is feeding time and raise her head out of the water and open her mouth to catch the pellets. Following right alongside Apollo would be Aurora.
Lucian and Aurora had short bodies with short tail, while Aurora had a short body and long tail. So, whenever Aurora swam to the surface, her tail would glide with elegance. It was if you were watching a mermaid swim. She would swim glistering and dance around the tank with joy. However, that joy did not last for long. My brother and I later discovered Aurora bloated and swimming upside down six months later. We realized she had swim bladder disease which is common in goldfishes when watching one of Luke’s videos. However, if you waited for a few hours, the bloating would go away on its own, and she would be swimming happily again. To prevent her from getting bloated. My brother and I resorted to feeding the goldfish peeled boiled peas a few times a week, to prevent the fishes from bloating. It worked very well until one day we noticed it was not working. A day or two later, we noticed Aurora had flared scales on her body. It was my worst nightmare, as a goldfish keeper. I knew all too well what that meant. Apollo had a Dropsy, which in some cases is fatal and can be difficult to treat. I had followed Luke’s Goldfish instructions on his video on how to cure my goldfish. When you are dealing with dropsy, it is best to get treatment right away. However, without any luck, I still lost Apollo a couple of days later. Lucian ended up getting dropsy as well, and luckily the second time was a success.
When keeping goldfish, I recommend always keeping your water clean. Goldfish do tend to produce a lot more waste, so it is key that you keep up with water changes. From my first time keeping, something I wish I would have known was to soak my pellets in water first before feeding. It helps aid your goldfish with digestion and makes it easier for them to chew. I found it to be extremely helpful when feeding my goldfish with swim bladder disease. To those that are reading this, I am not a licensed vet so I cannot provide you with information or answers on how to cure your goldfish. I am not a Goldfish expert, just someone who enjoys raising goldfish. Thank You, for reading my blog post!
My First Goldfishes
From the left side, we have Aurora. Lucian in the middle, and Apollo on the right side.
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