Quick question about cycling new tank (fishless)

[missxlys]

Hello all-

My first and only previous post was about 4 months ago, when my son brought home a fair-won goldfish and I had no clue what to do (especially living in a tiny rural area with no pet stores nearby or any friends locally with fish). Our goldfish is thriving and we have bought him a bigger tank, which we hope to put him into and add a friend so he isn’t lonely! It is thanks to you guys that he’s doing well so thank you for your advice and please, give us more! ?

Our new tank was set up about 3 weeks ago (fishless). I have added an old, used filter from our smaller tank so that we could introduce some beneficial bacteria. We used spring water to fill the tank so PH would be right, and treated it with Quick Start and Aquasafe Plus. We could not find pure ammonia locally so the nearest pet store told us to simply add pinches of fish food to compensate.

Long story short - we have an API testing kit and we have not seen measurable amounts of ammonia or nitrite in testing since setup. However, nitrate levels are now at 10 PPM.

Are we ready to introduce our goldfish to the tank, or am I being overeager? It seems like if nitrate is present then the bacteria needed to balance nitrite and ammonia is already there?

Also related but off topic - how often do you recommend partial water and filter changes in the new tank after fish are introduced? Is a 50% change and new filter every 30 days or so sufficient?

Thank you!!!


Alyssa

 

[Aiken Drum]

You have no way of knowing how much ammonia you have been introducing, and so have no way of knowing if your new tank is cycled or not. You are correct that nitrate is a sign that you have some cycle (unless your tap water has nitrate), but you dont know if its sufficient to process out all the ammonia your fish produces.

Put the fish in the tank, monitor water parameters and cycle the tank with the fish in there the same as you did first time around.

How big is the new tank and what filter does it have?

 

[missxlys]

Thanks so much for the response! I used spring water (our tap water is so-so) when filling the tank so hopefully nitrate is from the old filter I put into the tank.

We purchased a used 10 gallon tank we found on FB and got the Marina S10 power filter (Marina Power Filter for it from Amazon. (https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0032G8...abc_WJJD0CDJSH99FXBNZ3CV?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1).

If the fishkeeping seems to stick, we will likely upgrade again when we find a bigger used tank, but I’m trying not to go too overboard with a five year old and his loose grasp on responsibility ��

 

[Aiken Drum]

A 10 gallon tank is still nowhere near big enough for a goldfish. If its a fancy type goldfish you might get away with a 20g tank. Otherwise you will need a 30g tank.

Goldfish get big, are very messy, and they can live a long time. They need space to grow, a lot of water to dilute that waste, and a filter rated for double the tank size. If they dont get this the fish will be stunted, its body will stop growing but internal organs wont, it will suffer ill health and wont live its full life.

Expect to need a bigger tank much quicker than you anticipate.

 

[ColdKoi]

If you’ve moved used cycled filter media to the new tank it’s technically good to populate immediately (though still best to wait and let things stabilize)

Like mentioned “ghost feeding” is less than scientific but if you’re not seeing any ammonia the cycle is still going. It’s pretty safe to say you can add the fish any time and keep an eye on water quality as you can still see an ammonia spike if you start introducing more ammonia into the tank than you have bacteria to process