Good fish to entertain my cat?

[Pepper]

I have a spare 55gal tank and I'd like to get some fish for my cat to watch, and for some "bedroom ambiance" if you know what i mean. Someone on facebook said that they have tried this and goldfish were the only thing they tried that caught the cat's attention. Anyone here have anything to add?

Also, i obviously havent done much research yet, but what else do I need for this tank? Gravel obviously, maybe some catfish to clean, but what about a filter? The pet store near me has an "under-gravel" filter that the packaging says is the best option because the impurities naturally go to the bottom. Anyone with experience there?

 

[basin79]

Treat goldfish like you would predatory fish. They need LOADS of filtration. Best bet would be a massive canister filter.

I can highly recommend checking out a your tuber called Pong Guru. He talks about a full filtration cycle and just what that entails.

 

[draconisj4]

Goldfish produce a huge amount of waste, an under gravel filter will not work for them. I used to use under gravel filtration years ago and could never keep them alive for very long. I have my goldfish "Dave" in a Marineland Eclipse tank with an outside filter that uses biological filtration and he's been going strong for 14 years now.

 

[Pepper]

Goldfish produce a huge amount of waste, an under gravel filter will not work for them. I used to use under gravel filtration years ago and could never keep them alive for very long. I have my goldfish "Dave" in a Marineland Eclipse tank with an outside filter that uses biological filtration and he's been going strong for 14 years now.

Ive also read goldfish need a lot more space than you'd think. How big is yours and how big is the tank?

 

[draconisj4]

Dave is about 5 inches counting his tail, he's in a 12 gallon tank which is really too small for a goldfish but I don't have room for a larger one, but the filter on his tank filters 150 gallons an hour. I do a 25% water change, vacuum the gravel and change the filter cartridge once a week . He's just a plain old feeder goldfish, nothing fancy.

I believe the recommendation for goldfish is 30 gallons for one and 12 gallons more for each fish. It also depends on if they're fancy goldfish , I don't know the exact requirements but I think fancy ones need more room.Edited to include a pic of Dave. Excuse the algae, he likes to nibble on it.

 

[mantisfan101]

Other species of fish would be a group of neon tetras, rainbowfish, danios, etc. You can’t really fit any monster cichlids in a 55 gallon but maybe a pair of convicts, angels, or rams would work.