Telescopes

What are telescope goldfish?

Telescopes, also known as moor goldfish or butterfly goldfish, are a type of fancy goldfish characterised by their long, flowing fins and protruding, ‘googly’ eyes. They’re an iconic and readily available variety of fancy goldfish, with lots of aquatics stores across the UK stocking the popular black telescope goldfish. They’re available in lots of other, less common colours morphs too, such as panda telescopes (black and white), calico telescopes (white, orange, and black), and chocolate telescopes (rich brown).

How long do telescope goldfish live for?

Telescopes are a relatively hardy variety of fancy goldfish, with a lifespan of 15-20 years. To ensure your telescope goldfish lives a long and healthy life, you’ll need to keep it in a suitably sized and filtered environment – a >100L aquarium equipped with a powerful, external canister filter is ideal – and feed it a variety of high-quality, specially formulated fancy goldfish foods. It’s also a good idea to stock up on fish treatments and medicines, just in case your telescope goldfish falls ill or injures itself.

What do telescope goldfish eat?

As members of the wider carp family, telescope goldfish – like all other types of goldfish – are omnivorous and appreciate a diet that contains both animal matter and plant matter. We recommend that you offer your telescope goldfish a variety of fish foods, including floating flakes and sinking granules. We also recommend that you offer occasional blanched vegetables, such as green peas, as these will help to relieve your telescope goldfish of common digestive problems.

How big do telescope goldfish get?

This depends on what type of telescope goldfish you have. Those with long fins can reach sizes of 30cm, while those with short fins may only reach sizes of 20-25cm. Nonetheless, a foot-long fish is a large fish and needs to be housed in an appropriately sized fish tank. We recommend an aquarium that can hold at least 100L of water – though bigger is always better. If you’re planning to keep multiple telescope goldfish together, follow the rule of 75-100L per telescope goldfish.