# is it cruel to have a goldfish in a bowl



## joe (Jan 3, 2012)

do you think its like putting a fish in a cage putting a goldfish in a bowl?
I have a 75 gallon tank at home but im at school and was thinking of getting a goldfish. I just feel as if theres not enough room.

But I also thought they only can remember the last 3 seconds...

What do you think?


----------



## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

you can't maintain a proper bio load in a bowl. you need some type of filter. You can probably pick up a nice little 10 gallon that will do the trick. I believe I have seen a 10 gallon kit at petsmart for about $35, tank, light, hood, filter


----------



## PureHash (Nov 29, 2012)

In a bowl with an undergravel bio filter is ok.

And fish have memories longer than 3 seconds, way longer then 3 seconds. Have you ever noticed that your fish recongnize you? They know you have their food? That's a memory.

Mythbusters also did a take on a fish's "3 second memory" and they busted it, they trained these fish to get through a maze to the other side of the tank to get their food, they would train the goldfish to swim through orange circles in a piece of plexiglass, they sussesfully trained the fish, and they held their memory for like a week.


----------



## Y2KGT (Jul 20, 2009)

Yes its cruel to keep a goldfish in a bowl. Imagine living your entire life in a closet. You wouldn't be very happy and you definitely wouldn't live a long life.

Goldfish eat a lot and create a lot of waste therefore requiring at least a 20 gallon tank for one fancy goldfish with good filtration and excellent aquarium husbandry.

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=830+835+2743&pcatid=2743
--
Paul


----------



## joe (Jan 3, 2012)

Thanks for your responses I deff wont get a goldfish bowl if i get a fish ill set up a small tank for it


----------



## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

it is absolutely very cruel to keep a goldfish in a bowl, pls consider a single Beta for a large bowl (maybe a small one would be acceptable, but you will need to verify that with some of the experts in this forum)!!! Or, for a small bowl, getting some red cherry shrimps (2 - 5), and do a little scaping, like add some substrate, some low light plants like java fern and java moss on a rock, and you are set, you will barely have to do any water changes (if ever)!!!

For the common goldfish, you need about 20 gallon per fish, and for fancy, you need 10 gallon per fish (though recommended 20 gallon for the first fish still). They are very messy, need alot of filtration, are expensive to maintain, grow very large, and putting them in a small bowl can stunt their growth, ie their body may grow less or not at all, but their internals will, and eventually will die. The are very good pets, but in your 75 gallon tank, NOT for a little bowl. If you do want to go goldfish on your 75g tank, i can guide you with that if you need. Note that they will eat many type of plants, but i have been successfull with a few nice low light / low maintenance plants that look wonderfull.


----------



## Ryan.Wilton (Dec 12, 2012)

IF a bowl is the sought after container... Then try a betta fish.


----------



## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

get a cheap ten gallon and setup a WCMM biotope. They are very active fish even though not many people like them i love the hell outta my wcmm. They are so fun to watch and you can get at least 6-10 in a ten gallon no problem. if you like the gold colour, get the gold wcmm variety


----------



## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

i love White Cloud Mintoun Minnows too. They seem to like my 75 gallon much more than my 10 gallon though . But yea, the WCMM dont require heating, low bioload, very nice fish to have ... I am not sure he wants a 10g tank at school though.


----------



## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

joe said:


> Thanks for your responses I deff wont get a goldfish bowl if i get a fish ill set up a small tank for it


he did say small tank   10g it up! hahaha..


----------



## Ryan.Wilton (Dec 12, 2012)

pfft... a 55 gallon is small to half of us


----------



## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

yeah, if i could upgrade all my 10 gallons to 55 gallons, that would be nice


----------



## joe (Jan 3, 2012)

I think i might do the betta fish and shrimp, my tank at home is a killies tank I started with two now theres like 10 so i just let the shrimp and the killies do their thing. But I like the idea of a nice scape in a fishbowl prob get a betta because i dont wanna be cruel to a fish


----------



## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

not sure if both beta and shrimps would be ok in small bowl (would be good for the beta actually if he wants a nice snack), but you can try it and see how it goes. Good Luck.


----------



## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

If i remember you can have one shrimp and one betta but need a decent size space and plant cover for the shrimp of course. there was a post about this earlier about keeping betta with other pets, should search it up. If you do make a betta bowl please make sure to heat your bowl or have your room set to the appropriate temp 

This is just a suggestion, why not make a shrimp bowl. thats one thing on my to do list at the moment and it sounds fun!


----------



## Ryan.Wilton (Dec 12, 2012)

An Algae eating shrimp would be fine with a betta, but a heater would be beneficial for the shrimp. I've heard Ghost Shrimp do okay with bettas. How big of a bowl are you using? If it's less than 1gallon only do the shrimp or betta, not both. If it's over 1 gallon, then probably the 1 betta with 2 ghost shirmp or 1 algae eating shrimp. Make sure you put lots of plants (such as Java moss and Java ferns) to minimize the chances of the betta eating the shrimp.


----------



## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Betta fish don't need really warm water. If the room is T shirt comfortable, the fish should be ok. Though if it's 20C or less, might need a heater.

Personally, I think anything smaller than 2.5 G is not enough space for a Betta. I know many believe they should have a 5G. But if you are short on space, a 2.5 does not take up much room and does allow for a Betta to have a reasonable life. 

But those little plastic Betta tanks that are less than 2G, I don't think they are enough space even for the fish, let alone to add any shrimp.

But shrimp would not care if the room was 20C, as they don't mind quite cool temps. Might be less work to have a 2.5 with shrimp and forgo having the fish.

Not difficult to get a couple of small rocks and bit of of wood with some moss, maybe a fern, in a 2.5, along with a small sponge filter. The filter not only keeps the water clean but also provides a food source if you are away for a weekend or something. Main thing in so small a tank is to avoid overfeeding, which will foul the water quickly. Wouldn't even need a light, if you could keep it sort of near a window.. if its get algae, the shrimp will happily eat it, and you could always put in a small Nerite snail too.

You could run a sponge in your home tank to seed it, and take it with you to school in a bag of water, to keep the bacteria alive.. just make sure it does not get too cold during transit.


----------



## Ryan.Wilton (Dec 12, 2012)

Fishfur said:


> Personally, I think anything smaller than 2.5 G is not enough space for a Betta. I know many believe they should have a 5G. But if you are short on space, a 2.5 does not take up much room and does allow for a Betta to have a reasonable life.


+1. Fishfur has it on the money, 2.5gallons are the best for bettas as they take up minimal space. Personally I won't use under 1 gallon for my Betta unless they're fry.


----------



## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

I had 3 ghost shrimp in my 5.5 tank with a betta and my wife told me to remove the shirmp because they were picking on the betta. Kinda backwards to the normal, maybe my betta is a wimp


----------



## Jackson (Jan 30, 2009)

pyrrolin said:


> I had 3 ghost shrimp in my 5.5 tank with a betta and my wife told me to remove the shirmp because they were picking on the betta. Kinda backwards to the normal, maybe my betta is a wimp


ghost shrimp will kill fish even the ones they're meant to feed if they have the opportunity to pick at them.

I lost my old Congo puffer that way. Thougt it was smart to leave a bunch for it to eat came back to my puffer with a big wound on it's side and I seen the damn shrimp trying to pick more. My puffer never healed properly and died.


----------



## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

anyone have a picture of ghost shrimp? they look like amanos to me


----------



## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Just tried to take some pics, no luck, they are basically clear and about an inch long, if you give them a bright coloured food, you can see it inside of them.


----------



## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

why are they so aggressive? why are they so different than cherries and amanos?


----------



## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Here is a link to a pic of a pretty typical Ghost shrimp.

http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=...PYaUfPhMOGh2gXxk4GgBQ&ved=0CDoQ9QEwAw&dur=526

My experience with Ghost shrimp has not shown them to be aggressive, but in small tanks, I suspect any aggressive behaviour might, possibly, have something to do with the space available to them. I haven't ever kept them in anything smaller than a 5, and that was only to raise their larvae, so the females were not in there very long. The rest have always been in at least 25 to 30 G community tanks, with loads of plants, rocks and wood to hide in or under. In fact, they don't hide much under those conditions, but they will scurry for cover if they feel threatened, say, if I'm planting or doing maintenance.

In my 30, Ghosts have not, to the best of my knowledge and observation, ever harmed any fish. There are kuhli loaches, corys and a few species of Danio, some of them are Orange Hatchets which are not very big at all. I have Ghosts in another similar tank with Endlers, Pencilfish and CPDs, and they have not harmed any of them either, not even the Endler fry.

I also kept Snowball shrimp, Whiskers and some species of fan shrimp, with the Ghosts. No aggression toward fish or other shrimp, with the exception of newborns. Though they will argue over food items, mainly between themselves, and they will certainly eat anything dead or too sick to move away from them, they leave live things alone, with the one exception of newborn and very young Snowballs, and they certainly did not get them all. Plenty of Snowballs grew to maturity with them, and that does not even count any fish predation on baby Snowballs.

Perhaps in small tanks Ghosts may not feel very safe and thus become more aggressive. In a small Betta tank they'd have nowhere to hide and because they are a prey species in nature, that means hiding is second nature to them. I've rarely seen a Betta setup with lots of decor a shrimp could hide in. If hiding spots were around, they might be quite peaceful, if the Betta didn't go after them. Some Betta fish are pretty pushy themselves.

If unable to hide, it would not surprise me to see any creature become more aggressive, more or less as a defensive measure. A fish the size of a Betta may not be much threat to a Ghost in terms of its mouth size, but because they have oversized fins, I'd think they probably appear much larger and more threatening than other fish with similar body size.

Just my thoughts on it.. in general I've found my Ghosts to be pretty peaceful overall, though every critter is an individual and there will always be some that behave differently than the rest.


----------



## splur (May 11, 2011)

incredibly cruel. I can barely maintain my 25 gallon with 3 goldfish, I almost find it cruel to keep them in that overfiltering it. A bowl would be madness.


----------

