Very new to the aquatic world... Eck Hem... HELP!

[August]

Haha! OKAY help!

A few months ago while living in BC I got a goldfish… Okay well 5 in a little Hagen starter kit that wasn’t even a gallon! All but one died and I kept him happy and fairly healthy(in a 10 gallon) and he grew almost 2 inches before I gave him away and moved to Alberta

Now after actually reading about fish and specifically goldfish (They are so cute!) I figured I could try again; I went to Big Al’s and got their 20gallon starter kit, and three pearl scale goldfish, first mistake, buying the fish before the tank cycled.

I have now had the tank for three weeks and had one causality, she died within 12 hours of purchase so I just put her in the garden, I don’t NEED a third goldie in the tank, if you haven’t seen them at BA’s they’re about an inch… or rather were mine have literally doubled in size (not exaggerating here: P)

But my problems with this tank have been since day two

I had new tank syndrome and only in the last week has the tank really cleared up, almost crystal clear! I have been using stability by seachem and following the directions on the back to combat the problem. My NH3/NH4+ has been consistently high at about 2ppm and daily water changes have not helped that out, to help the fish out I have been dosing them with Ammo lock by API twice a week 5mls per dose. I have prime but I have not used it yet because I am starting to get worried about chemical reactions.

My NO2 has only in the last two days started to register a number at .25ppm but almost no quiet there with the colour (I am using API matertester) and nothing on the NO3 tester. My PH is at 8.2,

It’s a 20 gallon, with two heaters (there is a draft in the room) keeping it at about 82 the filter that came with the starter kit with the filter bit that came with the kit, and one aqua clear zeo-carb filter insert and nothing else in that back compartment (I don’t know what else to put in there), and a aquaclear air pump with two 6 inch long stones at either end of the tank, lots of agitation. The tank has one decoration in the middle and it is a clear bottom as my fish don’t seem to filter through the bottom if the rocks are there and food just goes bad and uneaten, plus I do like the way the tank looks, no plants, just two fish about 2 or so inches long. Poop machines.

How do I get the Ammonia to stay down before the cycle is complete, I do a 40-60% water change every other day.

How do I bring my ph to 7.4?

How do I encourage the cycle?

And what do I put in the back of the filter?

And what is a good instant de-chlorinator? I do not have the room for buckets of water to let stand.

I feed my gold fish a combination of homemade gel food, soaked flakes, and brine shrimp, throughout the day, I feel a bit more because of the slightly higher temp, should I be feeding a vegetarian diet to reduce ammonia? Would a plant help the situation out?

So in closing HELP I am addicted but very clueless! I cannot wait to have more space!

[werner]

How do I bring my ph to 7.4?

Don't worry about it. Most fish have no problem with a pH slightly outside their "ideal". And a stable pH is better than one that's swinging around because you're messing with it.

Would a plant help the situation out?

Plants will take up the NH3/NH4 (and NO2, NO3). However, then it won't be available to grow or feed the nitrifying bacteria. Goldfish will probably think the plants are lunch anyhow.

[tbemis]

I am by no means an expert on the situation but here are a few of my comments:

1. see if you can get some used filter material from someone close to you - this will help with the cycling

2. if you are unable to do this you need to keep up with the water changes until your tank has fully cycled and reached 0 for ammonia

3. once again not a real expert on gold fish but i don't think they need to be at a specific pH (meaning you can just use tap water and not have to worry about changing the pH)

4. two heaters for goldfish in my opinion is overkill - they are a cold water fish and do not require the higher temps that tropical fish require.

5. as for a de-chlorinator you can use Seachem Prime this will also help a little bit with the ammonia, but you still need to maintain water changes until everything is stable then you can space them out a little further

6. your goldfish are probably going to continue to double in size for a bit so eventually they may need a larger housing facility

Good luck!

[geleen]

Your temp for goldfish may be to high 75F would be good.

Your tank seems to be cycling and will be getting better in time.

I would not feed for a few day's

You can get some pot scrubbers for that compartment in the filter these can hold a lot of good bacteria.

See if someone can give you some cycled filter material.

Add prime at the higher dosage recommended right away,your fish are in trouble.

Your PH is fine.

John

[August]

Thank you I did my water change today and added the prime and extra prime

and I will bring the temp down a bit more, I was keeping it higher cause the room they are in swings into the mid to low teens at times so i figured the slightly high temp was like a buffer for them

[firestorm]

It is probably actually a good thing your pH is over 8. In more acidic water (lower pH) ammonia becomes alot more toxic to fish and a lower pH probably would have just killed your fish alot faster. Prime is a very good way of getting rid of ammonia, and aquarium salt as an additive is a very good way of detoxifying nitrites and nitrates, so add some of that. Goldfish love to eat plants, so adding them might not help you too much. Get rid of one heater, and set the other one at around 75. In a 20 gallon you shouldn't need more than 1 heater for goldfish, if any at all. Goldfish can stand temperatures in the mid 60's as well, so try not to worry too much about the temp. Besides that higher temps there is less oxygen in the water, which you will need plenty of while your tank is cycling. Keep up on water changes of about 25% every other day until your ammonia and nitrite levels read 0. Unfortunately most pet stores don't offer great advice for people just starting in the hobby, you basically have to go online or buy books and do research yourself to learn what you need to know.

And for goldfish, they produce alot of waste, which means the levels of ammonia can rise alot quicker than tanks with other types of fish. Make sure to keep up with regular weekly water changes of at least 25%, so that your goldies stay healthy and happy. Feed them only as much as they can consume in 2 minutes, remove any uneaten food that they don't eat. I would feed them mainly a diet of good quality pellets and flakes, save treats for feeding only 1x a week. Skinned frozen peas are a great treat for goldfish and will help prevent swim bladder disease. Since goldfish seem to get swim bladder more easily than other types of fish, I highly recommend feeding them peas once a week. Hope this info helps

[werner]

It is probably actually a good thing your pH is over 8. In more acidic water (lower pH) ammonia becomes alot more toxic to fish and a lower pH probably would have just killed your fish alot faster.

Actually it's the other way around:

"The total ammonia in an aquarium will be present in two forms: ammonia (NH3) and the ammonium ion (NH4+). The proportion will depend mainly on pH, and to a lesser extent temperature. At alkaline pH, more of the ammonia will be present as the more toxic NH3, while at acidic pH, more of the less toxic ammonium (NH4) will be present. Ammonia poisoning is therefore more common at alkaline pH." from this article.

[Baos]

When I was new to the hobby, I bought from the wall of promises. My fish died all the time when I was medicating and adding chemicals. I keep a bottle of prime for said tank emergency which I havn't used in a long long time. I don't remove chloramine and my fish are perfectly healthy.

Forget your ph, your fish will die if you play with it. They don't want to be readjusted constantly with new chemicals added.

If you're artificially removing ammonia all the time, your cycle will take much longer to complete.

Feeding more than once every day or 2 will lead to crazy ammonia levels, especially in an uncycled tank.

Also if you are feeding frozen food, pre rinse it in a net. Many contain high ammonia levels

Just for arguments sake I established a 10g tank with 5 blue rams while not treating water and doing one water change every 2 weeks. I only used it as a holding tank while I made sure what said petstore sold me had no diseases. The petstore didn't expect them to survive. Seriously, no one here will recommend blue rams for establishing a tank. Gold fish are far more hardy.

In my opinion I'd do water changes to remove the chemicals you already have in there as they could be interfering with the cycle process which will lead to a re-do. Use only prime for water changes, it will break the Chloramine. And run charcoal in your filter.

You could also buy some used gravel or sand from someone elses established tank. It will speed up the cycle process. But that comes with a risk of introducing new illness.

[August]

where would I look for slightly used gravel or meduim from an established tank?

also I am already doing the pea thing it was one of the first things I was told to do with pearlscales, as they have an even higher rate of swim bladder disease then other goldfish.

so next time how would I ideally set up the same kind of tank?

would home grown brine shrimp be better than store bought frozen cubes?

and is Hikari the best brand of food at this point?

[rayfong]

and is Hikari the best brand of food at this point?

It depends on who you talk to. I personally use New Life Spectrum (NLS). It is pricer than other brands but you use less of it so it more or less evens out, plus my fish really love it. I'm sure there are a bunch more people who use it on this forum.

[Vallisneria]

where would I look for slightly used gravel or meduim from an established tank?

Post an ad in the buy/sell forum. I'm sure someone from calgary will give you some.

[Ishkabod]

I had a major headache establishing my Koi tanks. I had to reestablish the filter many times due to the fish outgrowing the tank before it cycled so After the months of headache and hours of reading here is what i can say would work fastest

1. Get that filter media(i use ceramic beads) into that empty slot. You can buy ammonia removing chips and just use them continually after as a bio media.

2. Use Prime ONLY you don't need anything else. (and stability of course) Goldfish and koi are very hardy and very poopy. Prime helps and only converts the toxic ammonia into the non toxic form that the bio filter can remove it does the same with nitrItes and Ates. The larger bottle states you can use up to 5 times the recommended dose in emergencies.

3. Reduce the feeding to one time every couple of days. Do you water changes(be sure to vac gravel) the next day after you fed them. Letting them be a little hungry is better than the toxic ammonia and Nitrates and nitrItes.

4. Add plants In the tank or in a breeding net so they can't eat them.

5. Add Aquarium Salt NOT table salt. Carp(goldfish and Koi) are very salt tolerant so even a second dose the next day would be fine. My Koi were at 1 tbs per gallon for a while but that was dosed at 1 teaspoon/gal three times in three days.

6. Only do a WC to keep the levels from getting really high but not non existant. Goldfish can take allot and the higher the levels the more there is for the bacteria to eat.

7. Reduse the heat to as low as it will go. They actually thrive much better in cold water and allot more ammonia is in a non toxic form in colder temps. You said the room you are in drops down to the teens and back up again. Water has a very high heat retention capacity so turn those heaters OFF and watch the temp for a day and see if it varies a whole lot or not. Try to maybe adjust the heaters to the medium temp between the lowest and highest the room gets/average room temp.

8. DO NOT WORRY ABOUT PH

Good luck

L

P.S. One last thing you can do is use a brine shrimp net to remove waste by manually stirring the big stuff up from the bottom and getting it out with the net.

Here is a link you might find useful and i found almost invaluable

GOOD INFO lots of reading though

Edited December 3, 2008 by Ishkabod