About gold.fish

Goldfish are among the most kept fish in the world and among the most misunderstood. They are sold as starter pets and treated as disposable, when in reality they are large, long-lived, intelligent animals that can share a home for fifteen or twenty years if a few things are done right. Most of those things are not expensive or difficult. They are just rarely explained well.

gold.fish exists to explain them well. It is part encyclopedia, part practical toolkit and part visual guide: breed profiles with real care requirements, cornerstone guides that give reasons rather than rules, symptom pages that put water quality first, and calculators that show their assumptions instead of hiding them.

The site, counted

Who it is for

Anyone with a goldfish, and especially the people who arrive here because a child won one at a fair, a friend left one behind, a shop gave bad advice, or a fish looks unwell and the internet is shouting. You will not be lectured. Many of the best goldfish keepers started with a bowl and a bit of misinformation; what matters is what you do next.

What we believe

1. 01

   Reasons beat orders.

   A keeper who understands why ammonia matters will look after their fish better than one who has memorised a list.

2. 02

   Ranges beat rules.

   Husbandry advice varies between experienced keepers. Where it does, we say so and explain the assumptions.

3. 03

   Water comes first.

   Poor water quality is a frequent cause of illness in pet fish and often makes other problems worse, so test it first.

4. 04

   Commercial content stays separate.

   Buying guides are clearly labelled, researched rather than tested unless we say otherwise, and never mixed into care or health advice.

5. 05

   Nobody gets shamed.

   The goal is to improve outcomes for fish, not to win arguments with their owners.

How the site is made

Writing

Every page is written from established husbandry knowledge and checked against the positions set out in our editorial policy. Where experienced keepers disagree, the page says so and explains why.

Health pages

Educational, and deliberately without diagnoses or dosages. They start from what you can see, put the water first, and say plainly when a fish needs an aquatic veterinarian.

Photographs

Reused under licences that allow it, all but one from Wikimedia Commons and the pompom from Unsplash, credited beneath the picture with a link to the original, and all listed on the image credits page with the cut-outs made from them. Each was checked against the features that identify the breed rather than trusted from its filing. The tamasaba’s only free photograph is a small cut-out, set on black and enlarged, so it is softer than the rest; the meteor is a plate from 1917.

Diagrams

Drawn for the site around real fish: every goldfish in a diagram is cut from a breed photograph, not drawn, and is credited in the plate where its licence asks.

Tools

Each shows the assumptions behind its answer and links to the guide that explains them. Each also installs on a phone as an app of its own, and so does the whole site.

Independence

gold.fish is not affiliated with any manufacturer, retailer or breeder, and it does not accept payment for editorial coverage. If that ever changes for a specific piece of content, it will be labelled as sponsored on the page itself.

Get in touch

Corrections, suggestions and stories about very old goldfish are all welcome. Write to us.