Goldfish with loaches?

[Solarris]

I just finished cycling a 55 gal fw tank. It has 4 goldfish in it and I did some research online and couldnt find anything about not putting goldfish (small ones) and dojo loaches together. Now I have 1 loach that is looking kind of listless and I've actually had to nudge him a couple times to make sure he wasn't dead but the other one looks normal. My 6 yr old son just said he saw one of the goldfish bite the healthy looking goldfish near his mouth. I was just wondering if it was a mistake to put these fish together in the same tank. I'm not planning on leaving the goldfish in there, just wanted to add a couple fish to increase the biological load before I take the goldfish out and replace them with something else. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

 

[mfdrookie516]

what are your water parameters? what temp do you keep them? how big are the goldfish?

 

[Solarris]

My temp is 76 - 77
Ammonia 0.25 - 0.5
Nitrite .05
Nitrate 0


I looked in the tank again and the feelers around the loache's mouth had red ends so I'm thinking the goldfish were biting him so I took them out and put them in a goldfish bowl that I had.

Also, the 4 of the goldfish are about 1 - 2 or 2.5 inches in length.

 

[Aquarium1]

If you have nitrite and ammonia, you aren't done cycling.

 

[buddha_red]

looks like your almost done with your cycle. your not quite done yet as you shouldn't see any nitrites and ammonia.

 

[Solarris]

Doh! I found a website that said ammonia above 1.0 ppm was dangerous to fw fish and that nitrites at 0.1 was so I thought that if it was lower than those it was ok. Can't believe I relied on that and didn't ask here! Oh well, lesson learned. I'll see if I can return the loaches to the lfs tomorrow morning and keep testing. Even if they won't give me my money back for them I'd rather see them alive there than dead here.

 

[Aquarium1]

Good deal.