cycling & damaged fin

[Jason123]

Hey guys I have a quick question about cycling a tank with fish (opps) and a fish with a damaged fin. Before that I will give you all a quick history of my fish keeping exp.
I had fish as a kid, and the tanks been in storage for 15yrs. I got interested in in fish again when my sister went our and bought some goldfish, but never set up the tank. She decided to stick them in a jam jar and deal with it after work the next day. I woke up and noticed the fish where dying and rushed to the fish store, bought some supplies and pulled the ol' 10g out of storage. Well I managed to nurse the fish back to life, and its 6 months old now. I did not know about cycling at the time and did water changes every few weeks. (Prob why a few of the fish died)
As of right now I have 4 goldfish, 1 basic gold fish, 2 fantail, and 1 unknown.
Over Christmas break I had no choice but to buy a 10 day feeder, and upon getting home noticed tonnes of algae in the tank. Me not knowing a lot about fish keeping decided to move the fish to a bucket, and do a full clean of the tank, probably killing a lot of bacteria. Thankfully none of the fish died, and I found this site. I bought the test kit and have been doing lots of half water changes (almost daily). Below is the tests until now. I am wondering if I should be doing a few more daily changes until the ammonia is 0, or if weekly half changes is enough now?


Jan-12
Ammonia 0.5
Nitrate 5
Nitrite 0
water change: half

Jan-13
Ammonia 0.25
Nitrate ?
Nitrite ?
water change: half

Jan-15
Ammonia 0.5
Nitrate 5
Nitrite 0
water change: half

Jan-20
Ammonia ?
Nitrate ?
Nitrite?
water change: half

Jan-21
Ammonia 0.5
Nitrate 5
Nitrite 0
water change: none

Jan-24
Ammonia ?
Nitrate ?
Nitrite ?
water change: half

Jan-28
Ammonia 0.5
Nitrate ?
Nitrite?
water change: half

Jan-29
Ammonia 0.25
Nitrate 5
Nitrite 1
water change: none


My next question is my gold fish jumped out of the tank when the lid was off and part of the top fin is damaged... Thankfully I was in the room and got him back in his tank. He appears to be swimming around fine. Should I be worried about any possible infections? I think he was jumping around because the tank is too small for the amount of fish. Only a 10g with the 3 goldfish. I am currently keeping my eyes out on craigslist for any deals on a tank probably a 50-70g.

 

[mfdrookie516]

You may never reach 0ppm ammonia with 4 goldfish in that small of a tank.

 

[Jason123]

Guess Ill just do a few extra water changes a week, until I get my new tank... properly cycled of course

 

[Jgeezer1986]

with four gold fish in a 10g tank , you are probably at about 40%, where as internet reading will say 20-25% for cycling. As rookie said , your ammonia will probably never reach 0 with goldfish, but you could probably get it going. Goldfish are a hardy fish, they can live in hard conditions. With four goldfish , i would just keep up after the regular water changes, probably twice a week.

As for the damaged fish, as long as there is no kind of diseases in your tank, there is a great chance he will revive perfectly.

All the luck to ya.

 

[mfdrookie516]

I would recommend a 50% pwc as often as necessary, probably every other day, maybe even every day. The best cure for any illness, disease, or injury is clean water. Its really hard to have pristine water in a situation like you're in because an uncycled tank WILL have ammonia present. Not real sure what the whole 40% is about, but since a common goldfish needs a very large tank, and fancy golds need around 15g+ each, the bioload they are putting in your tank is quite large. Just keep an eye on ammonia, and try and keep it at or below .25ppm. That should help ease the stress on them and help the one heal quicker.

 

[dkpate]

+1 for Rookie.

 

[Jason123]

Thanks for the info guys, and like I said my next tank will be properly cycled first

 

[supradupafast]

I see that you have "1PPM" for NitrItes, if so, do a large water change to bring it to below 0.5PPM.