Newbie Needing Goldfish Help Please

[nemo35]

Hi all im probably posting in the wrong section so sorry in advance if i am

We got my daughter her first tank,in the hope of her having a goldfish,but so far we have had 2 dead fish within a day.We followed what our local pet store suggested and set the tank up and left it all running(the tank came with a filter) for 3 days.
so i go and buy a goldfish yesterday morning and followed the submerge the bag for 20mins then netted the fish in to the tank,only to find it dead 4 hours later.we return it to the shop and my daughter choose another fish (from a different tank from the first fish in the shop).same again,we submerge the bag etc etc.we get up this morning and its dead and i now have a heartbroken daughter.

what are we doing wrong ? when i had goldfish as a kid it was as simple as fill a bowl and put the fish in.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hi there nemo,

there's a number of things that could be going wrong, bit hard to say without some more information. how big is the tank and what equipment do you have running on it?

sometimes fish just don't make it in the transition from the shop to your home although it's very bad luck to loose two this way straight after each other.

it could be that the fish were just from poor stock in the first place, not all fish shops are created equally. did you look round all their tanks for dead fish and so on?

however the most likely reason is that the advice given by the fish shop to just leave the tank running for a few days was very poor and chances are the tank you have is too small for two goldfish. the way that a filter works on a fish tank is that a couple of species of bacteria grow on the filter media (sponges etc in the filter) and they process ammonia (that comes from fish waste and is toxic to fish) through to nitrate which is not toxic. when you buy a filter those bacteria aren't there, they need to grow and develop before you can add fish. unfortunately just leaving the tank for a few days does nothing to build up this bacteria colony, what you need to do is what we call a fishless cycle where you add ammonia to the tank to replicate fish producing waste and build up the bacteria before you put any fish in.

if you don't do a fishless cycle then you end up doing a fish-in cycle wether you know about it or not. what happens is the fish start producing ammonia in your tank which is toxic to them, the bacteria will start to grow and over a few weeks will start processing this ammonia but by the time the bacteria colony is in place chances are the fish will have died from ammonia poisoning. so what you have to do is lots of large water changes to keep the ammonia down until the bacteria colony can handle this themselves.

so you were in a fish-in cycling situation without knowing it, it's unusual for fish to die within 4 hrs but goldfish are also big waste producers so will have started producing a lot of ammonia straight away, if the tank is quite small then this would build up quite quickly. goldfish are really better suited to ponds or to big tanks.

if the tank is empty now then i'd suggest you look into doing a fishless cycle, there's a link in my signature with step by step instructions. you can then stock the tank with fish of a sensible size for the tank, when you let us know how big the tank is we'll be able to advise what's best. it may be better to consider changing it over to a tropical tank instead of coldwater, really the only extra thing you need is a heater and it's not any more difficult than keeping goldfish but there's a much better selection of small colourful fish suitable for small tanks.

 

[Wills]

Hi welcome to the forum!

Goldfish are actually surprisingly difficult to keep properly, in earlier days people had success with keeping them in little bowls because the fish were tough with good quality genes and healthy fish that managed to survive in small bowls and high levels of toxins in the water - literally defying science and logic. However today goldfish (among many other common tropical fish) are bred in massive massive numbers just from harvested eggs not based on the quality of the parents which often result in low quality genes and all sorts of health problems they are also raised as fry in 100% sterile environments and then transfered to the shop where again they are kept in a near sterile environment so when you get them into a new tank and expose them to the nitrogen cycle they basically poison them selves because they are living in their own toilet.

When we say fish live in their own toilet think of it in literal terms, with all waste products there are a whole host of issues that arise. The main problem in new tanks are chemicals called ammonia and nitrite which are created by fish poo. The cycle goes like this -

Fish poo - Ammonia - Nitrite - Nitrate

Fish poo creates the ammonia then a bacteria that forms naturally in flowing water with an ammonia source eats the ammonia and creates a chemical called nitrite in a similar way we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. However nitrite is still harmful to fish and can kill them but again a natural bacteria processes the nitrite into a chemical called nitrate which is quite harmless to fish which is what we need to do water changes with.

This is called the nitrogen cycle which goes on constantly in established fish tanks. In new tanks however there is no bacteria but the bacteria will grow if it has an ammonia source and a way of flowing the water - ie the filter. However while this is happening the chemical levels of ammonia and nitrite get really high and will kill fish in the water or at the very least make them ill.

The best way to get around this is whats called a fishless cycle which is where you bypass the fish poo to create the ammonia by using household ammonia so in the first few weeks of the fish tank you add a small amount of pure ammonia to grow your bacteria that will then support the fish that you add to the tank. There is a really good guide to this process in the beginners resource section.

Goldfish are very messy fish they create a lot of poo and waste and can fowl water very quickly. So within the day the fish were in there the poisonous ammonia levels would be sky high and thats what would have killed your fish. Like I say a few years ago goldfish were very tough and hardy fish but mass farming has wrecked them. Additionally its kind of a personal choice of how well you want your fish to live, the goldfish in a bowl that has survived for years is doing just that just surviving not thriving. To thrive goldfish need big big tanks or ponds to thrive to grow to their full potential and never be kept on the edge of the risk of death from the poisons they were living in. I dont want to sound like a hippy but its just kind of an ethical choice of how you keep your fish.

If the tank is quite a small one say around 50 liters or 10 gallons or smaller there are better fish to keep in it. If the tank is for your daughter I reckon the easiest thing to do would be for you to do a fishless cycle, add a small heater to the tank and have a male Siamese fighting fish. These have the long flowing fins of the goldfish but stay small and come in some incredible colours

I know its a lot to read there hope its helped!

Wills

 

[nemo35]

Hi

Thanks for your reply,im not sure on the size it was just a kiddies my first glass tank,and it came with a filter,which we have had running.the only thing we added was water conditioner,which the shop recommend.

Im just starting up with tropical too,we were thinking starting my daughter off with goldfish would be easy.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

can you give us a rough idea of the dimensions; length, width and height. glad it has a filter and you are using tap water conditioner, you'll need to keep using the conditioner for the life of the tank.

yeah the idea that goldfish are easy is a common myth, I often think the humble goldfish is one of the most mis-treated animals on this planet. if it is a small tank which I'm guessing it is then some small tropical fish would be much better for your daughter, they're much more colorful and interesting than goldfish anyway!!

if you read through the link on fishless cycling then feel free to ask any questions that you have, we can talk you through every step of the way. i know plenty of members that have really enjoyed getting their children involved in the fishless cycling process, can be quite scientific and educational for the but in a fun way cos all the time they're thinking of the lovely fish they can get!!

 

[nemo35]

I have just spoken to my local store and they are going to test the water for me to make sure all is ok with that.They also suggested cold water fish instead of goldfish so we'll be talking to my daughter into those instead i think,hers will be more like my set up that way is the first selling point i will put to her lol

Thank you so much for your replies,i will read through everything later tonight when kiddies are in bed and i have peace to take it all in

 

[Miss Wiggle]

lesson number 1 in fishkeeping - the fish shop is a shop, they're trying to make money from you, it's not a free advice centre.

sad but true, they do what they need to to make money from you, sometimes this means giving poor advice because then they can sell you all sorts of medications etc.

have a read through the links on cycling and satisfy yourself though. it's good to get the water tested but best to get your own test kit so you can check it whenever you need to. when they give you the readings make sure you take note of what they are and let us know, don't let them say to you that something is 'fine' or 'too high', ask for actual numeric readings for pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.

 

[JMcQueen]

er...Goldfish ARE coldwater fish??