new here

Oh boy, i really feel for you. What is happening is that your biological bacteria is not established so your tank is cycling. Here is some info: http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84598
I would recommend getting a liquid test kit, and doing lots and lots of water changes. Your tank is also overstocked by their advice. I would recommend either posting in freshwater newbie, or general coldwater for help. I am so sorry your experience has started like this, but we will be here to support you until its worked out!

I am really sorry for all your troubles seems like the store is a little negligent selling you so many goldfish in that size tank sounds like there is alot of different problems going on if you do not have any fish left in tank i would suggest to empty tank and do a really good rinsing of tank with water also rinse all your gravel etc several times and start over again but this time look up some good starter fish your son may enjoy maybe some daniosto help start cycle. But the best bet is to do some research on the type of fish your family would enjoy. Unfortunately alot of the chain stores do not have really experienced staff to help customers. Fishkeeping is a great hobby and should be enjoyed it should not be the nightmare you were just put through. Just look around the posts on here there is alot of good info welcome to A.C. I hope this bad experience wont sour you from fishkeeping and good luck

I'm sorry for your troubles. I would like to preface my post by saying I am not a sugar-coater and may come off as harsh and inconsiderate. There are some important things that need to be said, however, and I really do not mean to discourage you from the hobby in any way.

First off, discontinue trusting the advice of the various pet stores you have visited. They are first and foremost salespeople, and will say anything to get you to buy their products. Granted, some employees do know a thing or two about fish. The majority, unfortunately, are completely uneducated and will give you useless and even harmful advice. The best thing you can do is go to a trusted source of information (like AC forum!) and read and ask as many questions as you can.

Read the link that Msjinkzd posted. It explains the cycling process, the importance of water changes and diligent aquarium maintenance. Those "instacycle" products you have bought are complete frauds, and you would be best off trying to return them and using the money to purchase a liquid test kit. If you search the site here you will find countless pages of evidence to back me up. They do not work.

You ought to consider returning the fish you have and getting a refund. They are not suitable for a 20 gallon tank.

Welcome to AC.

Looks like you are heading into the common new tank syndrome...


What you have to do now, is to cycle your tank.. by not adding chemicals or whatever into your tank's water during the cycle is in progress. Chemicals like pH down, pH up, Proper 7.0, 8.0 etc, all of those are bad for your water and your fish, they just want to make money off of ya. Chemicals are baaad, stray away from them...like AshK said, discontinue trusting the advice of the various pet stores you have visited. I agree.


I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the goldfish can't live long in the 20 gallon even though you have the cycle established..what you may need is a large 60 gallon to house the goldfish.. because goldfish can get quite large, hitting to 4-6 inches or larger. If you don't want a 60 gallon since it's too big on the buck, keep the new 20 gallon and go for small community fish, like schools of 6 guppies, 6 neon tetras, and 4 corydoras, all these fish stay small 2-3 inches and are very peaceful, they can live together in a established 20 gallon for years to come.

For now, what you want to do is get your tank cycled. Do a large 50% water change, like right now. Start doing lots of water changes everyday from this point. I highly recommend buying a aquarium freshwater test kit to test for pH, pH hardness, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. I prefer freshwater master test kit brand by API, it's good. Your ammonia should be pretty sky-high right now like what the person said, you are pretty much overstocked that's why its so high... and nitrite and nitrate should be 0. Test dip-strips are NOT all that accurate, by the way! You may encounter false readings if you do decide to get it...Soo what you want to do is keep up with water changes, keeping ammonia about 4-5 ppm and not any higher. If ammonia is above 5ppm, water change back to 4-5ppm. Read this to get the general idea of the cycling process, that should explain it all down. In a unfortunate situation, like if all of your goldfish died out, then I would use 100% pure clear ammonia from your local groceries, walmart, to cycle your tank. If you indeed want to use ammonia to cycle your tank, read "Fishless cycling", should be in the link I provided you.


So once your cycle has completed, you can start by adding new fish VERY SLOWLY, not too fast or you will get a mini-cycle. Many fish can adapt to new water by letting them slowly adjust. To get them to adjust to your tank's parameters, pour the new fishes into a cup, then you want to pour small amounts of your tank's water to the cup slowly..in order so that the fish can acclimate to the new pH, temperature, salt, and whatever is in your water. Takes about 1 hour or 2, so keep pouring small amounts.. When you are done, go to the sink with your fish cup, grab a fish net, and dump the fish through the net, and dump the fish into the tank WITHOUT the fish store's water. If you pour the fish right in without acclimation, the result may be a shock to the fish's system and plus you might introduce parasites with that fish water. A shocked fish is one that will start gasping at the surface, dying... And don't be surprised when the fish you bought from the fish shop dies randomly.. Petco, petsmart, LFS's(Local Fish Stores) sometimes usually carry stressed out fish from shipment or the store owners and employees may have handled the fish improperly, so the fish can die for no apparent reason. It depends from owner to owner's knowledge and care. If they know how to do this, and then do that, like quarantining, acclimaton, diagnose, and etc...if they know a lot about fish and they know what to do, then it may be safe to say the stocks are usually healthy..you should go find yourself a good local fish store.

Some advice, fishy maintenance. Sure-fire way to have healthy fish... 50% water changes every week or every two weeks. Gravel vaccum once every month, using python! No more heavy bucket madness! This works by using your water's force from your faucet to start siphon and the old water gets drained out, once done, you can siphon new water back to your tank. And the filter's media needs a rinsing after a month or two, be sure to rinse the the filter media in a bucket of your tank water. Don't worry about the bacteria (your cycle) it will not go away so easily, the bacteria will soon establish itself yet again. The media, which is the polyester quilt bag, not only it holds your biological filtration(bacteria) it also holds your carbon, you can buy some without carbon, actually you should get some without carbon. There is no need for carbon, carbon absorbs ammonia and that'll mess up your cycling process. Also it's not really all that necessary when your cycle is completed.


By maintaining everything, you will have a very healthy aquarium. It's not hard keeping freshwater fish. All those chemicals are not necessary to keep your fish at optimal health. All you really need to do is keep up with water changes weekly and maintenance, that is enough to keep your fish very healthy.


Well, I hope this helps. I have gone through ups and downs with this as well, don't feed bad.. When I was a little kid, my dad used to buy me a super small plastic tank full of feeder goldfish and they all died because of serious ammonia poisoning. So I used to lose a lot of fish back in the days, we used to kept lionhead goldfish and then they die...of course due to our lack of healthy aquatic fish keeping knowledge.


Good luck, sorry to hear about the deaths.

-William

Hi Beabroca. Welcome to AC.

I saw both your posts in the cold water area so I wanted to come here first and read your first post. I'll comment too, more specifically, in your later posts.

The main thing I want to convey now is just relax. We'll all help you through this. And keep in mind that you have done absolutely nothing wrong. None of what has happened is your fault. You've been given really bad information from several salespeople who give out advice designed to sell some mass marketed, quick-solution product... as they've been told to do. They mean no harm. They just don't actually maintain these tanks or raise these fish themselves in their own homes, so they don't have any real knowledge about this to draw from. They know how to run tests and which product they're supposed to recommend for each paramater that falls out of the target range. You describe a symptom, that equates to a disease so they sell you medications. Your water is too high or low on something, they sell you chemicals to artificially change it based on what marketing people recommend to sell that product line (even though this doesn't work that way). You describe a condition such as cloudy water... sure enough, they have bottles of something that's supposed to magically make it look sparkling clean. You come in telling of dead or dying fish, they're right there to sell you even more of them. They have a lot of fish on hand to sell, so they encourage you to buy as many as you can. Then if those die too, okay then just buy some more. That's what they do - they sell supplies, chemicals, medications, and as many fish as customers will buy, over and over again. A beginner at this doesn't stand a chance. And believe me... we've all been through this ourselves. You are definitely not alone in this.

On the positive side, you've not let this rocky beginning dampen your enthusiasm or your interest in continuing on. They've wasted a good amount of your money on doomed fish that couldn't survive what they've had you put them through. Okay... so you'll take back whatever supplies you bought that isn't of any actual use to you. What's important is you've invested in a beautiful tank setup and you've bought really good equipment... that's a high quality filter, you probably also have a decent air pump, heater, and so on. That part of this is a great start for you. Now, you'll learn now all about cycling a tank from the beginning.. doing your own water tests and understanding how the readings you get will tell you where you are along the process. Then you'll be ready to choose whichever fish you want that are well suited for the tank you have.. again, at a slow rate. In the end, you do end up with exactly what you wanted from the beginning.

aah..the infamous LFS...don't we just love them.