Maki

The Black Moor

There's lots of advice on not mixing the 'fancy' breeds of goldfish with traditional single tail fin fish. Maki holds his own and after Fry arrived he's found someone to bond with.

He's been sick a lot. That orange smudge in the background was Maki's original tank mate, Tekka Maki, who died within a week. I guess there was an infection in the tank but Maki survived.

Maki is shortened from Kappa Maki. Both fish were named after sushi.

I'm careful to watch for damage to Maki's eyes because they protrude from his head and also for signs of swim bladder infection. Once I had a Black Moor who lived almost entirely upside down after an infection ruined his ability to swim up right.

The Setup

OK first admission - the tank is too small for the fish the way they are. I know this. They are healthy and the water conditions are within acceptable limits.

Currently it's a 5 gal tank (UK gallons) Elite Cool 21 with 5 goldfish. it came with filter, plastic plants, water conditioner, gravel. I've gotten a different filter from the original one in the set and that one just couldn't keep up with the amount of waste. In fact I threw out most of the things that came in the set at the start.

The fish have grown from when I got them. Initially they did fit with the shorter body sizes but now not so much. I'm saving to buy them a 10 gal tank but that will take time.

Air pump - Interpet Airvolution AV Mini (not available on the through Maidenhead Aquatics online but this is the size up). It's adequate for the job since I only have a singe ornament running from it.

Filtration - The Elite Cool set came with an Elite Stingray 5 filter. Big enough for the size and while I had 3 goldfish in the tank, however it easily became clogged and I was cleaning it every week so I got an upgrade. I did what most of the aquatic shops do for their display tanks and got an oversize filter for the tank. Fluval 2 Plus designed for up to a 15 gal size tank so I'll be able to move it into the new one when I can afford it. This has a 2 step filtration and has the option of the 2nd stage being either carbon or fine particle filtration. Nice option because carbon can take the medications and treatments out of the water.

Plants - I'm the proud owner of 2 moss balls. For a long time I never thought I'd find real live moss balls and even though goldfish destroy every other plant the moss balls seem to stand up to everything they throw at them. I have a couple of pond weedy plants because they just get pulled apart every other week.

So aside from decoration with rocks and a bubble wall that's the setup. Next up fish.

In the Begining

I've decided to split the goldfish blogging from my regular nursing blog -WardBunny's Coffee Break. It makes sense not to clog one up with the other so Maki, Blinky, Nemo, Fry and Truffle now have a dedicated blog. Lucky fish!

We'll be seeing you around!