HELP!!!

[missxlys]

Hello,

I’m in a pickle and need help ASAP. My parents brought my son to our local fair yesterday and he brought home a goldfish he won playing one of the games. I was fuming, as we live in a tiny town that doesn’t have a pet store or Walmart and thus there are no tanks or food for sale in town, either. And of course the fair people don’t sell these things or think about what happens to these fish after the kids bring them home. ��

Long story short, I feel terrible for this goldfish and want it to not suffer. My son seems very excited about it so I’m willing to give it a shot. I drove 2 hours round trip today to purchase a small tank with filter, water conditioner, substrate, plants, food and thermometer. What I didn’t realize I needed was either 2 weeks to 2 months to cycle this tank and establish bacteria, OR a bacterial additive.

Frankly I can’t justify dragging my child another 2 hours round trip tomorrow to get a bottle of bacterial additive, and I don’t know if this poor goldfish will survive 2 weeks or more in a glass bowl with nothing but water in it until I can cycle a new tank that long.

What is your best advice? How can I give the fish the best chance at a healthy start in our home without putting myself through another road trip? I hope I don’t come across as unkind but we have family in town starting tomorrow afternoon so a road trip before they get here tomorrow just isn’t feasible for me and my son...

Or if I did make the trip and get the bacterial additive, how soon after could we put the fish in the new tank?

 

[BigRedsReefs10]

You can easily do a fish in cycle with a gold fish, you’ll want to order a test kit though. The api master kit is like $30 and will be all you need to monitor the parameters. Hopefully you bought a tank in the 20-30 gallon range as gold fish are large and messy fish. As far as where you go from here you can set up the tank and add your water conditioner and I’d at least let it run a couple hours before adding the fish but not sure what would be worse the bowl or brand new water. Then plan on changing around half the tank water every couple days until you get a test kit then any time your ammonia or nitrite are above about .5ppm you’ll want to do a water change.

 

[SteffeyJ]

Do you know anyone near you that has a fish tank that you could get some used filter media from??
Or could you post on a local community page asking if anyone nearby would be willing to give you a used sponge or filter media?? This would most definitely help to cycle the tank...
And goldfish produce ALOT of waste..
So I would plan on doing TONS of frequent water changes with dechlorinated water..

 

[Aiken Drum]

https://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f135/won-a-goldfish-at-a-fair-carnival-help-here-377527.html

 

[ColdKoi]

Just went through the same scenario, but mine was self inflicted lol

I did a fish-in cycle with close to 20 small (1.5-2”) comet goldfish in a 29gal planted aquarium. Yea it was a dumb idea and no this isn’t the forever home for these fish

But I was in the same scenario as you, nearest pet shop is over 2 hours drive each way from me. I’ve been wanting more fish for my pond but they never have stock on the larger comets or koi and I can’t throw the babies in the pond or the large fish in there will likely eat them!

So I opted to just buy the tank they had (wanted a 75g) and load up on the fish they did have in stock and fatten them up before they go to the pond!

What size tank did you purchase? Ideally like mentioned earlier something around 30gal would be ideal as goldfish can get fairly large and they are major polluters. If you’ve only got a 10gal or so, it’ll be ok to start, just a little more work doing a fish-in cycle and eventually the fish will need more room

With my incredibly overstocked tank I managed to cycle in less than a month. Though in the first week I had to do daily water changes, progressing to every couple days then finally once a week. With your single fish it won’t be near as bad, but you do need to monitor water quality and keep on top of water changes until the tank cycles or you risk essentially poisoning it

Best of luck!

 

[missxlys]

You guys have all been sooooo nice and helpful! Thank you! I couldn’t find anyone locally who had a used filter so I’m doing the best I can solo.

I was only able to get a 2.5 gallon tank for now. And I forgot to mention that I got some test strips yesterday so I should be able to monitor things til the test kit you recommended arrives from Amazon later this week! If we decide to become permanent fish keepers then we may upgrade, but we are short on space with baby #2 on the way and 2 cats and a parrot already �� plus the 10 gallon tank was $120, and I figured I couldn’t spend that much on a goldfish if my 5 year old decides he isn’t a fish person! ��

So I prepped the tank last night - rinsed the gravel and decorations, prepared the filter, added the water conditioner and DISTILLED water... dumb move, decided to research that, learned distilled water is a no-no, and immediately dumped everything this morning and refilled/conditioned with tap water. So hopefully I can put the poor goldfish in late tonight or early tomorrow morning; his bowl water is soooo cloudy and I imagine it just sucks in there for him. I’m scared he’s going to die waiting for his new tank to be ready! ��

Amazon will deliver the bacteria additive here by Tuesday... happiest I’ve probably ever been about two-day shipping! If you are doing a fish-in cycle, I assume that with every water change (probably a partial daily change for a while), you need to add proportionate doses of conditioner and bacterial additive. When do you STOP adding the bacterial additive with water changes, if ever?

Again you have all been so nice and helpful and I (and “Ricey” the goldfish) thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

 

[ColdKoi]

That small tank is going to be a bit of a pain doing a fish-in cycle, but anything is possible! Definitely understandable not making any major investment until you know whether or not the kid is going to be ‘into’ it

While doing the fish-in cycle, you need to keep doing water changes to minimize the pollutants in the tank and keep the fish alive, but you are also removing some of the essentials for starting the cycle. Kind of a vicious circle lol

Yes, when changing water you need to top up with more treated water and ideally it will be dosed with the proper amount of good bacteria to account for what you’ve just removed from the tank.

Personally I stopped dosing bacteria around the 2nd week with my tank, that’s when I started showing nitrite and nitrates indicating things starting to progress in the cycle. By week 4 I’m fully cycled

Once your tank has cycled there should be no need to add anything else other than treatment to dechlorinate the water you add to the tank. Only exception to that would be a massive upset to the tank (full water change/cleaning substrate/cleaning filter) where you remove enough of the good bacteria the tank can no longer sustain its cycle. At that point you’re basically back to square one, working on a fresh tank.

Never hurts to keep an eye on the classifieds too, you can usually pick up used tanks for next to nothing!

 

[Aiken Drum]

You guys have all been sooooo nice and helpful! Thank you! I couldn’t find anyone locally who had a used filter so I’m doing the best I can solo.

I was only able to get a 2.5 gallon tank for now. And I forgot to mention that I got some test strips yesterday so I should be able to monitor things til the test kit you recommended arrives from Amazon later this week! If we decide to become permanent fish keepers then we may upgrade, but we are short on space with baby #2 on the way and 2 cats and a parrot already �� plus the 10 gallon tank was $120, and I figured I couldn’t spend that much on a goldfish if my 5 year old decides he isn’t a fish person! ��

So I prepped the tank last night - rinsed the gravel and decorations, prepared the filter, added the water conditioner and DISTILLED water... dumb move, decided to research that, learned distilled water is a no-no, and immediately dumped everything this morning and refilled/conditioned with tap water. So hopefully I can put the poor goldfish in late tonight or early tomorrow morning; his bowl water is soooo cloudy and I imagine it just sucks in there for him. I’m scared he’s going to die waiting for his new tank to be ready! ��

Amazon will deliver the bacteria additive here by Tuesday... happiest I’ve probably ever been about two-day shipping! If you are doing a fish-in cycle, I assume that with every water change (probably a partial daily change for a while), you need to add proportionate doses of conditioner and bacterial additive. When do you STOP adding the bacterial additive with water changes, if ever?

Again you have all been so nice and helpful and I (and “Ricey” the goldfish) thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

If you are able to test the water, your target should be to keep ammonia + nitrite combined at no higher than 0.5ppm through your water changes. Test daily, if you get 0.25ppm ammonia and 0.25ppm nitrite then a small water change. If they get to say 0.75ppm ammonia and 0.25ppm nitrite then do 50% water change. If you arent able to test water then do 50% water changes daily until you are able to. When you are consistently seeing no ammonia and nitrite, your nitrate should be steadily rising and you are cycled. You can then cut back on water changes to simply control nitrate.

There is a big "but" here. 2.5g isnt anywhere near big enough for a goldfish. Goldfish get big, like 12 inches. And they live a long time, 15 years typically, sometimes 20 or 30 years. You might never cycle this tank because it simply doesnt hold enough water or have a big enough filter to cope with the waste the fish will produce. It will quickly outgrow its home, and if it isnt moved to something more suitable, its body will stop growing, internal organs will continue to grow, it will get sick and die young. Sorry to be morbid.

As for the biological additive, no need to wait for it to arrive. Moving the fish is the best thing for it. The additive isnt the magical bullet it claims to be, at best it will speed up how long the tank takes to cycle from months to weeks. At worst, it wont do anything. These products are hit and miss (mostly miss). Dose as per instructions, no need to keep adding it beyond the initial dosages. While the product will say to dose, every water change, you are probably wasting money by keeping adding it. If you have some left though, no harm in using up the bottle.

You do need to add water conditioner every time you put tap water in the tank though.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Yes, when changing water you need to top up with more treated water and ideally it will be dosed with the proper amount of good bacteria to account for what you’ve just removed from the tank.

Just to add to this. You arent removing any bacteria by doing water changes, unless you are doing water changes immediately after adding bacteria. It doesnt live in the water, it lives on surface area, like the glass, filter media etc. If it hasnt established on the surface within a day or so, it isnt going to.

 

[ColdKoi]

IMO that’s not entirely true. The bacteria is obviously waterborne before it is established on the surface, it doesn’t magically glue itself to the walls once it’s been added to the tank.

You are likely not removing 100% of the bacteria per water volume removed, but in the case of daily changes and dosing, it’s entirely plausible you are removing some of the bacteria. It’s cheap enough and easy enough to dose for the water removed and it isn’t going to hurt anything. Worked perfect for me!

 

[Autumnsky]

Important information about fish keeping
https://www.aquariumadvice.com/guide-to-starting-a-freshwater-aquarium/

and Check on FB, Craigslist, 2nd hand stores, antique stores, and yard sales for tanks. Often posting a wanted ad in a local paper, people often have tanks in storage they don't need any more. Often there are aquarium groups regionally you may be able to check in with, and Aquarium Societies are in most states. Band.us also may be a place to find a group local to you. this was the first one that popped up
https://www.aqueon.com/societies
https://www.greenwateraquaristsociety.org/list-of-fish-clubs

 

[SteffeyJ]

I have a local facebook buy, sell & trade community that is GREAT for finding used aquarium tanks and other products! Maybe you could find something from an Avenue like that? Or even Ebay?
Just be prepared to do MANY Many Water changes so that the water does not become too toxic for your fish..
Also, do you have any sachem Prime???
Prime is honestly what I believe helped my fish make it through the end of my cycle.. it helps to make the water so it is not as toxic to the fish for around 24 hours..
So I used it to treat my water that I used after a water change and then added a little bit more if my levels were a little too high.. and after awhile, I only needed the prime to treat the new water.. it really helped me ALOT and I would def. Recommend it!!
Good luck!! ��

 

[SteffeyJ]

I continued to add Prime AND the bacteria additive (along with used filter media) until my ammonia and nitrite were at 0 but was reading nitrates..
And then you can back off of the bacteria and prime. After the tank tested this way, I only used prime to condition the new water after a water change. And only had to do water changes when my nitrate would get a little high...
Also, since then, if I see ANY ammonia or nitrite, I immediately do a water change and dose a little prime and try to find the cause... which in my case has happened 3 times, one was a dead kuhli loach (which I was devastated) and the other 2 were actually from 2 larger snails passing.. they must of been large enough to raise my ammonia levels..
So i now check more frequently for dead snails too lol.
But you shouldnt have that issue. So it should be even easier!! And hopefully your fishie will be just fine.
Atleast until it gets bigger....
And you will definitely have to move it to a larger tank.
And honestly, you really can find some REALLY NICE used tanks on some local forums and for sale ads and even ebay and craigslist!
Just check them out first and make sure the seals are all still in tact so it doesnt leak!!
Best of luck to you!!