Questions, questions...

[abm]

About these goldfish....I got LOTS O'QUESTIONS....and I haven't found a goldfish forum that I like yet.....didn't expect to be a goldfish owner this week One died today he had some white specks, like ich in a betta, and when i found him there was what appeared to be an eroded area on his right side around one of the specks....I got him out of the tank within an hr of his death, I'm sure....hopefully he was injured/ill before we got him and this isn't the beginning of an epidemic

From what I've read...goldfish produce a LOT of waste and need about 10 gals per fish....Is that for all sizes of goldfish or just the large ones? The ones we have are about 1.5" long (and about 3/4" wide - they are FAT!)

At the moment we have 3 in a 12 gallon uncycled brand new tank with a Biowheel filter and an air pump. Water tests thus far show almost no ammonia, no nitrite and no nitrate.

When we got this tank at Christmas, I had expected we would do a fishless cycle and then buy occupants, but the need to rescue these poor goldfish changed those plans.

QUESTIONS:
1. Can goldfish survive the cycling process?
2. Should I leave all three in this one tank to cycle it more quickly? (A friend is loaning me a 10 gallon tank next week, I will have the option to move one/more of the fish out if needed.)
3. While cycling the tank with fish in it, my instinct is to use Prime to keep ammonia at bay/keep it from harming the fish. Is this correct or am I off base with my understanding of what Prime can do?
4. If it is ok to use Prime during cycling, will it throw off our water tests? We have Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Freshwater Master Test Kit and can test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH and high range pH.

I'm sure there are more questions but this is a good start. Thanks in advance for any help. We want to do a good job by these little guys - it's not their fault they're goldfish

[bettons]

anotherbettamom said:

1. Can goldfish survive the cycling process?

I think it all depends on how intensive is the cycle. But of course it also depends on the fish too. I have heard of people using comet gold fish to cycle a tank.

anotherbettamom said:

2. Should I leave all three in this one tank to cycle it more quickly? (A friend is loaning me a 10 gallon tank next week, I will have the option to move one/more of the fish out if needed.)

I'd suggest doing a fish less cycle IF you have the cultured media. If you can't do a fish less cycle and don't have a place to put the goldfish, I don't see any option so I'd just leave them there and be EXTREMELY careful with the water parameters during cycle.

BTW, usually the rule of thumb when it comes to housing goldfish is 20 gallons for the first goldfish and then 10 gallons for each additional goldfish

anotherbettamom said:

3. While cycling the tank with fish in it, my instinct is to use Prime to keep ammonia at bay/keep it from harming the fish. Is this correct or am I off base with my understanding of what Prime can do?

I am not really sure whether what I am telling you its correct or not, so, If I am wrong correct me please, but I think that what prime does is that it removes ammonia molecules bonded onto the water molecules not free ammonia. I would just do small water changes every time I see ammonia & nitrite increasing.

anotherbettamom said:

If it is OK to use Prime during cycling, will it throw off our water tests? We have Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Freshwater Master Test Kit and can test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH and high range pH.

Like I said I don't know if it is OK to do this. I wouldn't recommend it, I would just go with the old method of small water changes when needed to keep parameters at bay.

[amanichen]

From what I've read...goldfish produce a LOT of waste and need about 10 gals per fish....Is that for all sizes of goldfish or just the large ones?

QUESTIONS:
1. Can goldfish survive the cycling process?

2. Should I leave all three in this one tank to cycle it more quickly? (A friend is loaning me a 10 gallon tank next week, I will have the option to move one/more of the fish out if needed.)

3. While cycling the tank with fish in it, my instinct is to use Prime to keep ammonia at bay/keep it from harming the fish. Is this correct or am I off base with my understanding of what Prime can do?

Prime breaks up chloramine and then bonds to the ammonia that's formed. The ammonia is still accessible to nitrifying bacteria, so they eventually take it out.

EDIT: You can use it to lessen an ammonia spike, as it will deal with 0.6ppm of ammonia at its standard dosage. The problem comes if you have a total ammonia test kit -- you don't know how much of it is free, and how much has been bonded to. You could always use the total ammonia measurement to be sure, but if you're doing that you might as well as do some water changes, you'll be using less water conditioner.

4. If it is ok to use Prime during cycling, will it throw off our water tests? We have Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Freshwater Master Test Kit and can test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH and high range pH.

I forget what type of reagents are in the aquarium pharm test kits. Does it measure free ammonia (NH3 only), or total ammonia (NH3 and NH4+?)

[bettons]

amanichen said:

I forget what type of reagents are in the aquarium pharm test kits. Does it measure free ammonia (NH3 only), or total ammonia (NH3 and NH4+?)

It measures total ammonia (NH3 and NH4+)

[ickyfishywishy]

i have cycled my tank with 4 huge goldfish and they survived everything all the other fish (tetras, angels, cichlids, mollies, catfish, rainbows, swordtails and even gouramies) all didnt survive any of the cycling, my goldfish did and grew tooo o big for me, but i was keeping the amonia realy down with a lot of water changes, :S headache!
not to mention that my tank was an 80Gallon , i think one is enough for a cycling 12 gallon

[abm]

Thanks for your input everyone. Here's my update:
Two goldfish died They were in the same "bowl" when I inherited them, and I think they might have been diseased before I got them....I thought the horrid white patches and raw looking wounds were ammonia poisoning (never having seen it before, but ammonia was running high, so it seemed likely ) and they both died within the first week....but the other two are FINE, with a capital F....shiny, healthy etc. On Friday I got up and both had a weird moldy looking growth on their faces...one was barely moving and I told my son they would probably die I read everything I had time to absorb over morning coffee and decide to toss in a JFC tablet and pray.... well, when we got home at 5pm both fish were not only alive, but active and happy and the mold/fungus/whatever it was was GONE . I couldn't find my camera to take a picture of it - any ideas? It was not present at midnight, but was by 6am. Nothing raised or stringy, just a moldy looking patch around their faces....

These were the water parameters (and yes, I did a 50% wc right after these tests before tossing in the JFC): Ammonia 2.0 ( :, nitrite 0, nitrate 0. Temp 72, pH 7.2. I didn't want to put any living being through this cycling process, and I don't know if adding the JFC at this point will ruin the entire process or what...but I couldn't let them die. I'm continuing to do daily water changes of 20-30% and the ammonia reading is the only one registering on our tests... I guess that means the cycling isn't progressing very well.