Hillstreams and goldfish

[KLKelly]

I love this forum and have learned a lot and read every post I can.

I am concerned about a few websites recommending hill streams as compatible tank mates with goldfish. These websites get a LOT of traffic which means a whole lot of hillstreams in very bad environments.

Someone just posted on GAB. We will do our best to educate them that it isn't accurate. I am hoping someone would take on the hill stream education with koko's goldfish world and goldfish paradise.

A local society member mentioned this weekend that Koko's recommended hillstreams and that she didn't agree with it. I surprised that a site would make such a recommendation when its so easy to find accurate info. I doubt they would appreciate LOL recommending throwing goldfish into a hillstream river tank.

Here is the link a GAB member posted this morning regarding Goldfish Paradise recommendations for compatible tank mates. http://www.goldfishparadise.com/info/tankmate.php

I hope one of you will make contact as a moderator of this forum. Hopefully your reputation will precede you.

Best of luck.

Karrie

[mistergreen]

I don't know about hillies. Temperature wise, they seem compatible. But plecos are problematic... My sister has a regular pleco in with 2 goldfish.. And the pleco would injure the goldies once in a while.

[KLKelly]

I never expected it would be fine to have the two together.

On GAB our goldfish recommendations are 100gph turnover on the filter and 75-78 degrees for fancies. Aeration of course with bubble wands but no power heads.

I will be reading to see what the consensus is.

[Diana]

Golds are from similar water temperature as Hillstream, but the water movement is totally different. I would not put Hillstreams with Golds.
Some Plecos have been known to suck the slime coat from fish with flat sides like Golds, Angels and Discus. I would not mix these, either.

[Jim Powers]

Another problem with keeping goldfish and hillstreams is that the goldfish will out-compete the hillstreams for food.
Goldfish are a bit dirty too, so the water quality hillstreams need may be hard to maintain.

[KLKelly]

Good information to know. Thanks for replying.

Whenever I hear of people interested in loaches I always provide the LOL link so they can learn more. I don't think GAB will be recommending hill streams with goldfish any time soon. Thanks again.

Karrie

[Martin Thoene]

An excerpt:

"Some hemaglobins have a greater affinity for O2, and bind easier, the benefits of which are obvious. But the downside of high affinity is that it 'costs' the organism more in terms of engineering the physical circumstances conducive to unloading the O2 at the tissues. If the O2 binds easily it is harder to "unbind". With high haemoglobin affinity, a fish can inhabit low O2 level environments. Carp for example, have high affinity haemoglobin, so can inhabit still waters.

Some fishes, by contrast have adapted to waters where the O2 levels are far higher, such as fast flowing streams and the upper levels of the open sea. Here there is no need for a high affinity pigment, and such fish have evolved a low affinity pigment, that has little difficulty in binding with O2 because of it's abundance. The benefits of a low affinity pigment are in the ease with which it unloads it's O2 at the tissues, saving the of biochemically "engineering" the unloading process which other fish have to pay.

Therefore in O2 rich waters the low affinity haemoglobin can be more efficient in getting the O2 to the tissues than a high affinity one (this concept sounds paradoxical, but is quite logical). BUT..a low affinity haemoglobin will NOT work properly in a low or only average dissolved O2 level environment.

These fish are therefore just not found in low oxygen content waters, and the average home fish tank falls somewhere into this category."

(Goldfish are CARP)

http://www.loaches.com/articles/hillstr ... -fast-lane

Another excerpt:

"Let's look at the human model again. Put yourself in the fish's place by equating it to the human experience of poor oxygenation.

Have you ever been in a situation where you could not breath properly? The first thing that hits you is nervousness and irritability. That is an automatic result of your brain receiving insufficient oxygen. This is not a comfortable situation for your body. Your heart rate increases. You start to panic. Can you imagine this situation continuing for days? Not a nice thought, eh? Prolonged low oxygen levels like this can lead to severe damage to vital internal organs. Your brain, heart, kidneys, liver... everything gets affected and some damage may be irreversible. Insufficient gaseous exchange may lead to carbon dioxide narcosis. This can lead to the automatic breathing triggers which monitor and regulate CO2 levels being depressed. This throws out the whole breathing system."

http://www.loaches.com/articles/oxygen-in-the-aquarium

Martin.

[KLKelly]

Thanks Martin : ) I like your analogy and will use that in the future.

Like I said I can't do anything about the other forums but I can do my best to educate those in our local society and the goldfish forum members.

[Laura]

'Twas I that was chatting with KLKelly about goldies and hillstreams. Here's the link that concerned me from Kokos goldfish website where hillstreams are listed as compatible http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/comfish.html

It was the water quality issues that Jim mentioned that concerned me as much as their other requirements. Goldfish are cute, but they're terribly dirty.

Unfortunately they also say that "Dojos dont do much for the algae but like to clean the gunk on the bottom of the tank."

[KLKelly]

OY - thats bad!!!!

I guess I could actually register and call myself LovesLoaches and post accurate info when people request it at least. I am glad that LOL exists and has the knowledge articles developed for referencing. Posts like Martin's with the science and the analogy make it harder to argue against.

I think I'm more worried about seeing the advice they have on goldfish. Might make me crazy. Off to check out your link.

[crazy loaches]

I am on goldfishparadise, I've often debated in posting something about the hilly tankmates, but there hasnt been much talk about them in the last couple years. They have a sticky on hillstreams at http://www.goldfishparadise.com/forum/p ... sc&start=0 and there is only a couple posts in the last few years, and the last post was a link to LOL's article on them at least, so I figure folks should just read that in if they had any sense they could come to their own conclusion they werent a good match.

[KLKelly]

Hey - thats good to know Thanks for the input also.