Help --- new tank, dead fish

[Chairman meow]

I only have one filter pad in with with shaggy the fish but he is extremely healthy and has reached the tender age of seven. I could squeeze his filter into it or put the whole thing in. He spent five years without one 

 

[eco23]

Is it possible to cut the filter in half? If there's little carbon granules in it just shake them into the trash. Put half with neon, other half back with goldy. Swishing it around can help seed it a bit,but won't really help to handle the bioload right now.

 

[Chairman meow]

Yeah I can do that. Should I put it in with other filters or leave it at bottom of neons tank?

 

[eco23]

Yeah I can do that. Should I put it in with other filters or leave it at bottom of neons tank?

Yeah, jam it in right next to the filter you have now.

 

[Chairman meow]

Cool thankyou, how long before I know whether it has worked?

 

[eco23]

How big is your goldfish? If he's really small, I'm researching if you can move the neon in with him for a little bit.

 

[eco23]

The problem is that you've got a real catch-22. A single neon in a thirty-something gallon tank will take absolutely forever to cycle (if at all). The one neon isn't going to put off enough ammonia to cycle the tank. However, you DONT want to add more fish to help it cycle. You're really stuck in a tough spot. The only solution IMO is to find another home for the neon and follow my article to do a fishless cycle.

And you're not going to know if the filter idea is working until you get a good test kit. Good news is, if you can find a home for the neon, you've already got a fantastic start for a fishless cycle.

 

[eco23]

Here's what I'm thinking...
A little neon tetra puts out so little waste into a 30 something gallon tank (sorry, us Americans are too lazy to learn the metric system), that the filter from the other tank should be able to handle it without a problem. I'd go ahead and do a 50% pwc just to lower the amount of ammonia that may be remaining from having the other fish in there. This way the tank will be temporarily livable for the neon for a while. You'll have some time to find another home for him without pulling your hair out.

The bad side to this is that while the bacteria in that filter will handle the single neon's waste, it's not going to be enough to feed the bacteria for very long. I'd try to find a new home for the neon within the next few days, and you've already got a fantastic head start on doing a fishless cycle since you have the seeding material.

 

[eco23]

If your gold fish is super teenie tiny small (it'd really have to be not much bigger than the neon), you could theoretically move the neon into there for a bit while you fishless cycle. Problem is that the goldfish will eat the neon if he's much larger. It's never a good idea to put tropicals and goldfish together because they have different temperature requirements, food types, all sorts of incompatibility issues... but desperate times call for desperate measures. The only true solution is to re-home the tetra.

Sorry man, that's the best I can do for now.

 

[Chairman meow]

No that's really helpful thanks. Unfortunately the gold fish is about 4 inches so he would probably eat neon. Don't suppose he would survive a trip to the states would he? X

 

[eco23]

His body would...not the rest of him probably.