Hello from Pittsburgh

Didn't your filter come with a intake screen like part number 4 on this diagram? http://www.marineland.com/products/diagram_ecom/n_peng_330.asp

I'm hoping the "10" for your ammonia reading is a typo. If not, you need to do twice daily 25% PWC's (partial water changes) and vacuum your gravel with each PWC. You should also be doing proper filter maintenance and that is not changing it like the companies tell you to do. I think AC's are good filters but I haven't read their instructions in a long time so I'm not sure what they are telling you to do. Here is my blog article on doing proper filter maintenance that has been reprinted in the articles section here. http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108685

You also need to establish your tap/source water baseline so we can tell if your tap/source water has a low pH, low hardness, low KH or if your tank ecology is causing these issues. Then we can work on a "natural" fix. Don't get into the chemical fixes that the pet stores want to sell you. Here is my blog article on how to establish your tap/source water baseline. http://goldlenny.blogspot.com/2007/05/find-your-tap-source-water-baseline.html

Welcome to AC.....:hi:

Since you asked about "chlorine" evaporating, does that mean you are not using a dechlor product?

Since you are from Pittsburgh, I'll presume you are in the big city and your water comes from a public utility. They probably use Chloramine to disinfect your tap water and it does not evaporate after 48 hours like the chlorine did in the "old" days.

You MUST treat your tap water with a dechlor product and since you are still cycling, you should probably use Prime for now since chloramine is made by binding chlorine and ammonia. Most dechlors will break the bond and neutralize the chlorine but the trace amount of ammonia would normally be handled by the biofiltration of a cycled tank.

Since your's isn't cycled, you would be adding ammonia to your tank with each PWC. Here is my blog page about chlorine/chloramine http://goldlenny.blogspot.com/2007/03/chlorine-chloramine-information.html and you will see that I still have 0.5ppm of ammonia left over after breaking the bond. When doing a 25% PWC, this results in a temporary raise in the ammonia by 0.0125% which is immediately handled by the biolfiltration in my established tanks.

In your case, even if you only used a regular dechlor (not Prime), you would still be drastically reducing the ammonia levels with each 25% PWC. DO NOT DO more than 25% PWC's during your cycling crisis since changing more than 25% of your water at any one time could drastically raise your pH making the ammonia much more toxic to your fish. God in His infinite wisdom, makes the pH go down when the tank is cycling and the low pH makes ammonia less toxic to fish. Here is a page that explains ammonia toxicity at various pH and temperature levels. http://dataguru.org/misc/aquarium/AmmoniaTox.html#ammonia3ppm At 3ppm, with your low pH, the ammonia is not toxic. It still needs to be reduced by doing 25% PWC's and you may have to do a series of 25% PWC's, one every couple of hours, until you get them below 1.0ppm.

You should also add a pinch of salt to your tank which will protect your goldfish from nitrite poisoning when the nitrites start climbing soon. A teaspoon will protect a couple hundred gallons so you only need a pinch for your 29G tank. You will still need to monitor your nitrites and do PWC's, as needed, to keep them below 1.0ppm but the salt will keep the fish from getting toxic doses of nitrites (brown blood disorder).

As you will soon learn, it's not good to cycle a tank with goldfish since they put out so much more ammonia than most other fish. It's why we preach "Fishless Cycling" so much in the hobby today... or using a product like Bio-Spira prior to adding fish. Most of the other so-called bacteria-in-a-bottle products do not work as advertised since the bacteria cannot live in a bottle on the shelf of the store.

Bio-spira is shipped and stored refrigerated in a package of ammonia so the N-bacteria are in hibernation and then when added to a fishless tank, the bacteria come out of hibernation and colonize the filter making it safe for your fish to be added the next day.

The Start Right is a tablet that fizzes... at least that's what I saw online. While I'm sure it works, I like using the liquid dechlor products since it mixes faster with the water and works instantly. When I do a PWC on my tanks, I use a Python water change system and refill the tank directly from the hose of the Python so I add my dechlor into the tank before refilling and as soon as the tap water gets into the tank, it is dechlorinated instantly. I would be too worried about goldfish trying to eat the fizzing tablets.

Like I said earlier, presuming you have chloramine treated water (call your water utility and verify), it won't break down by just letting it sit out like with chlorine treated water does.

I'm not sure why the Bio-Spira didn't work for you and if you saved the foil packaging, you should contact Marineland.com on their site and ask them why. Unless it got hot somewhere during the shipping/storage, it should have worked. It has to stay refrigerated until used in your tank. Did you use it in the 2G bowl or when you set up the 29G tank?

Welcome to AC Ally, and Goldlenny too I recognize you from GFP (I'm Crazy Loaches their).

I was also curious about your chlorine evap question. Are you using an aging tank? I dont knwo the minimum time for chlorine to offgass, I know many use aging tanks and some only for 24hrs. But less than that I am not sure. If your actively agitating the surface and turning the water over then maybe less than 24hrs is possible. Of course as goldlenny said if you have chloramines then offgassing wont work, thats why they use it. But here in Columbus they are just using chlorine.