Goldfish, A brief look

Goldfish, A brief look

One of the most popular water garden features that are known with all pond owners across the world is the goldfish. Gold fish are not just that orange colored fish that so many of us recognize and related to the word goldfish, but goldfish are found in just about every color of the rainbow and they are available in so many different sizes. There is sure to be a type of goldfish to please every owner of a water garden!

Historically, as children we are all taught to love fish through the use of aquariums and small fish bowls that we keep in our rooms. As we grow older, our love of plants and water come together with an enjoyable overall combination in the water garden. Most all of us can remember being at a fair at some point in out life and remember seeing the goldfish that were lined up in the little plastic bags that you could win. While these are all goldfish, your imagination and your adult taste in fish can run wild when you find just how many choices of goldfish that there really is out there. Owning a goldfish, a number of goldfish, is a life long dedication to a living creature that is both interesting and fascinating to watch that we can all love.

The more technical and correct name for the goldfish is Carassium carassius. The gold fish is a fish that belongs to the crucian carp family, which may seem strange to some, to consider the goldfish as part of the carp family. There are so many varieties of the goldfish that you may also see the goldfish name scientifically called carassius auratus as well. No real goldfish live as a wild specimen anymore, but you could say that all goldfish have been evolved from some type of ancient goldfish that no longer exists because of cross breeding, water gardening and the interruption of the wild involving the water.

Wild goldfish were never really just the orange color that we all associate with the goldfish name, but the orange colored goldfish are a distant cousin to the true goldfish of the wild that existed thousands of years ago. References to goldfish can be seen thousands of years ago, even as far back into China about the year 300. The poets of that particular time often referred to goldfish as a red scaly fish that would swim in streams and in ponds, but the color of red is rarely seen in drawings of that period. More historical reference to the goldfish is seen in the years of the 600’s where drawings and stories of goldfish in ponds and also as these goldfish were being raised as pets are seen more often.

Goldfish generally like water that is anywhere from fifty to eighty degree Fahrenheit, surviving on the food that was available in the water with the plants, or with the keeper providing some type of food as well. Goldfish survive on vegetarian like diets, where even the food that is prepared and commercially manufactured for fish is made from vegetable substances.