The Goldfish Experiment

I was corresponding with a friend a few weeks ago and mentioning what a pain it is to clean out the horse water tanks this time of year. Typically every week or so we let one of them get close to empty, dump out the remaining, spray it a little and then use a stiff bristled broom to try and scrub away the algae that’s accumulated. With a tank that’s nearly 5 ft long, 3 ft high and 2 wide, that’s a chore and it’s not fun when the weather is really cold.

So my friend suggested goldfish. He said that he knows people that have put them in the tanks, they eat the algae and you don’t have to worry about cleaning the tanks as often. I wasn’t sure that sounded OK, but I searched around and found some articles where people put them in, like this one.

I sent it to Tia and yesterday when I was going to run errands she asked me to buy some. So I bought 30 and she dumped them in the tank last night when she went to feed.

Today she said there were 8 floaters, those that didn’t survive the night. I figured some would have shock and die, but that’s nearly 1/3, so not a great sign.

We’ll see over the next week or so if they make it and if they actually make a difference in tank cleanliness.