Does his shell look normal?

[Kristina]

Those goldfish will live 25+ years if cared for properly My oldest ones are 11 years old now, lol.

 

[dmmj]

A little OT but I had a 15 year old gold fish, until my brother put a crawfish in there with it, next day, All I saw was a fish head floating.

 

[Turtle Guru]

I agree with you totally and also add use feeder fish, also if your going to use fish I suggest freezing them so you get parasites in your turtles and your shell looks dry but fine

 

[pdrobber]

OT, maybe there should be a goldfish thread lol, I had about 10 feeder goldfish in with my RES. He ate all but two of them which are now about the same length as him and he doesn't pay attention to...been about 6 months of them living together...didn't know they weren't good to eat.

 

[kailey lane]

@zesty_17,thank you about his nail,i am a dog groomer and am comfortable trimming nails and have my rat/bird sized clippers so when they were poking i trimmed them a bit with the advice of the resident vet at my job,no were close to the vain/quik of coarse,i managed to take enough off that he is no longer poking him self thankfully,so he is relived for now until he goes to the vet.i am planning on taking him to the vet to see what they say soon.and the about his shell ,hes been rubbing him self on the filter ill help him out if they look loose.thank you so much for your advice

about the fish- that is so cool! i never knew they could live that long. good to know.will they keep growing in size as they age or will they stay small?

 

[Kristina]

I can certainly do a goldfish thread and sticky it in the water turtles section - I was already thinking it would be a good idea

Kailey, they will continue to grow, but like tortoises, they do the most growing in the early parts of their life and then slow way down as they get older. My one fantail, Mei, was 11" as a 4 year old, and at 7 years old she is now 14 1/2".

The adage that "they will only get as large as their environment" is very misleading. It is true, in a way, because in cramped conditions they will only grow so big, and then die. If they are kept in a large enough aquarium, then they will attain a pretty big size. Comets (a.k.a. commons, feeders) will get larger than most double tails. This is true pretty much for all single tailed varieties. (Mei is one of the biggest double tails I have ever seen, and only 3 1/2" smaller than the world record.)

For single tails, they should be kept in groups of no less than 3 (goldfish are shoaling fish, something that is not commonly known) and you should have a minimum 45 gallon tank for those 3. With proper filtration (I use a filter rated for 10X my water volume; my 125 gallon aquarium has three filters that turn over 1300 gallons of water per hour) you can add another fish for every 10 gallons of water volume, so- 3 to 45g, 4 to 55g, 5 to 65 and so on.

 

[jackrat]

As far as his shell,it doesn't look like anything to be concerned with.

 

[kailey lane]

@kristina- i think a goldfish sticky would be handy! i couldnt find much info on it that was negitive when i looked ,so it would be helpful to other i would think.
the gold fish i have are about 1 inch long,how do i know how old they are?? a few are smaller than the others.we have about 10 of them in a 30 gallon,but they seem to have enough room.....should i get them another tank at this size? if so i only have a 10 gallon and 5 gallon sitting around,would it be better to split them up and give them room?i can buy a new tank if needed i want them to be as happy as possible.are they over crowded right now?

@jackrat-thank you so much!this make me happy,being a first time turtle owner so i didn't know what to think of his condition.

 

[Kristina]

At that size they are probably 3-6 months old. The problem with a smaller tank and then upgrading when they get larger is that it can stunt them. In a smaller aquarium, they will only grow so big and then will excrete a hormone that slows or stops growth. Splitting them up into the 5 and 10 won't help, because those are even smaller tanks and they will stop growing even quicker. I personally start my babies in a 55 gallon.

 

[herpgirl24]

Beans is so cute!

I rescued an RES and her shell was horrible! She basks most of the day directly under the Powersun, I got her in March and over the past month all her scales have popped off and underneath is nice pretty new scales! Amazing how resilient they are!

Good luck with you new guy!

I never new that Rosy Reds were bad, hmm guess I will be visiting the bait shop!

 

[kailey lane]

@kristina - ok, im on the hunt for a much larger tank now. thank you so much for informing me.

@herpgirl24- thank you,im so glad you save your res the shoots that he has shed i can see it is much more pretty underneath so im sure hell be looking better at some point.