How often should I change the water in my goldfish's bowl?

Question

I know it's better to have a tank with a filter, but I don't have enough money to buy all that. At the moment I have a large bowl with a cave of fake rocks and plastic plants. How often should I change the water in it?

Answer 1

daily

lest the young fish dies

Answer 2

You don't have 10 bucks? You'd be much better off to just go to Wal-Mart and buy a 10 gallon tank for 10 bucks.

P.S. Its not just a fish its a living creature.

-----EDIT:-----

Well, I'm sure you could borrow $10 from someone. Bowl/pitcher same thing. It needs to be in a fish tank or a pond.

Answer 3

weekly water changes are required 30 %. get your self a water test kit and some oxygen tablets.

if your ammonia and nitrate levels are ok a weekly water change may not need doing.

watch out for signs of poor health in your fish, it may be cheaper in the long run to get a small filter as fish medication can be expensive.    

Answer 4

Probably every two days but that won't help with stunting the fish's growth from being in too small of a container.

**

Answer 5

being its in a bowl with no filtration and its a goldfish (goldfish are extreemly messy) in order to keep him healthy untill you can afford a 10 gallon tank with filter (whihc i would start lokoing on your local freecycle and craigslists now as 10gallons is the ABSOLUTE minimum) you are going to need to change his water for fresh dechlorinated water AT LEAST once per day...preferably twice.

good luck.

try craigslist.org and look on yahoo groups for your local free cycle.

If you dont see anything posted put up a wanted add!

fishtanks are heavy and expensive to dump so you can often get a 10 gallon or bigger tank for free of very very cheap!

the rule of thumb with goldfish is 20 gallons for the first gold fish...10 gallons for each gold fish there after...but if you do a weekly water change and put a filter on it, he could live in a 10 gallon as long as hes alone.

Answer 6

2 times a week

Answer 7

When you see that your water is cloudy than go ahead and change 25% of your water. I would suggest you t get filter and you won't change water, filter will clear your bowl water.

Read more about it on this useful website.

http://aquatropicalfish.com/forum/index....

or ask on forum

http://aquatropicalfish.com/forum/index....

Answer 8

It's not neccessary to change all of it often, in fact that's actually a bad idea because it may be harmful for the fish to have the whole environment change.  Each Sunday afternoon when you are getting ready for work/school on the Monday, change about 20-25% of it and put a couple of drops of water conditioner in it that you can grab from your local pet store.  Goldfish are pretty hardy but you need to keep an eye on the water, obviously if it has a detectable smell or colour you aren't changing it enough.

NB: Don't worry too much about people on Yahoo Answers telling you your fishbowl is too small, there's a lot of fish enthusiasts on here that get upset at people having anything less than one small fish in a 175 gallon tank.  Just keep an eye on how he's doing and you should be fine.

Answer 9

When you have the money, buy a 10 gallon tank (though if too expensive, 5 gallon can work too) with a power filter and an aerator. In the mean time, goldfish (Which consume and egest the most matter of any fish for their size) are considered very messy fish, and release a lot of ammonia as well as cause nitrate levels to rise. Both are harmful chemicals, so twice a week, replace about 40 percent (not all, unless you want your fish to get stressed and fall ill.) I suggest using NovAqua and StressZyme and aquarium salt in addition to water dechlorinater to treat your water. Uneaten food will cause bacterial growth as well as a skyrocket in the nitrate levels, so don't feed to much, only what he can eat in 2 minutes, twice a day. Live plants help to soak up some of the nitrates.

Good Luck!

---Fish Guy  

Answer 10

i would change it about once or twice a month. if the water starts to get brown or a dingy color, that's a good indication that you need to change it.