cycling tank with goldfish?/ added salt.. HELP!!!

geckkko said:

I have a 40 gallon tank. I'm cycling it right now with 5 goldfish. I have done this in the past and it has worked well without disease. Now, however I noticed yesterday the goldfish had some kind of white spots (not ich) on their backs and fins. Therefore, I hadded about 5 tbsp of aquarium salt to the tank.

Now for my questions,

1- Since i'm still at the beggining of the cycle (3 days), will the salt affect the nitrogen cycle?

2- How do I take it out after? I have read to change about 15% of the water once a day for a week. Will that take it out? Is this the best way?

3- I've also read somewhere that goldfish are not a good fish to do the cycle with since they carry many diseases. Is it a good idea to keep the goldfish in the tank to continue my cycle or should i start the whole thing over by emptying the tank, bringing the goldfish back and getting another kind of fish like danios? Would this prevent my tank from starting off unhealthy for the fish which i'll be putting in the future.

Also note that i would be returning the goldfish after my cycle is done. Would I be better off starting everything over with danios which I intend to keep?

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If you don't even intend to keep the fish anyway, you might as well take them back now. Next, I would suggest doing a fishless cycle through one of the several methods posted on this board.

SirWired

when any kind of fish is used as a piece of equipment in a fishy cycle, they inevitably are damaged at some level. don't you think it's kind of rude to bring "damaged goods" back to the lfs for them to resell to some unsuspecting customer who will be getting an animal with a shortened lifespan and various health issues right from the start?

Danios would work nicely. I would suggest adding "Cycle" or bio-spira to the tank also. When I cycled my 20 gallon I did a fishless cycle with "Cycle" (got it at Petco) and within a week my nitrate levels were safe for me to add fish. It works the same way with adding fish along with the cycling product. Using one of the products with fish will reduce fish loss and disease and will give your tank the healthy start that it needs for the future. Hope that helps!

And just as a lil advice/ tip: goldfish are coldwater...thought that was interesting...lol. Had to share...

geckkko said:

the goldfish I have bought are used to feed other fish. So technically i'm accually expanding their lifespan. Now why would that be so "rude"?

Anyway, I've asked a simple question in order to get a simple question. Should I restart with danios or just continue with the goldfish.

Don't try to change my oppinions on fishless cycles because it just won't work. It's not that i'm not "impatient" I just don't agree with using non-natural products and techniques in order to form a "natural" cycle that has been done for many many years without problems, thats all.

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To answer your question, continue with the goldfish.

To talk about cycling:

A home aquarium does not even come close to a "natural" environment. In nature, each and every fish usually ends up with hundreds gallons of water, EACH. None of that 1" per gallon stuff for mother nature. Even a well-kept, scrupulously-cycled, home aquarium is a complete cesspool compared with a half-way healthy stream.

Ammonia is Ammonia. There is NO difference between Ammonia from fish waste and Ammonia from a bottle in the store. It is a very specific chemical compound that causes gill damage in fish. Either the tank has it or it doesn't. Either the Ammonia-eating bacteria are in the tank or they aren't. The fish don't know where the Ammonia came from, nor in a properly cycled tank, are the bacteria that eat the Ammonia going to be any different.

If anything, a fishless cycled tank will be MORE pure, and "close to nature" than a fishy-cycled tank, because the ONLY thing in a fresh fishless-cycled tank will be water, bacteria, and some Nitrates. In a fishy-cycled tank, there are also other gross fish-byproducts that don't break down into Ammonia. (In fact, one reason we do water changes when NitrAtes get to high is not because NitrAte itself is that particularly harmful. It is because the NitrAtes are as good an indication as any that the "other" fish byproducts are getting too high.)

To draw an analogy, saying that fishless cycling is "unnatural" and therefore bad, is like saying chlorinated water is not as good for you as building up immunity to water from a naturally parasite-infested lake. One source of water will keep you healthy. The other will give you Giardia.

Done properly, fishy cycling is certainly possible, and not too terriably bad for the fish. I think most folks here prefer fishless because it is a LOT less work. A fishy cycle often requires once or twice DAILY water changes to keep the Ammonia and NitrIte below harmful levels.

Aquarists (indeed, all pet owners) do plenty of "unnatural" things. We add salt to freshwater tanks to kill parasites. We add antibiotics to water to kill infections. We feed vegetarian fish a diet with a lot of fish meal. We change the water once or twice a week instead of continuously... the list goes on. Fishless cycling is no less natural than those other things often vital to a healthy aquarium.

SirWired

biospira is completely natural,its just bacteria,I never do fishy cycles,is does hurt the fish.I love my 'feeder fish' (comet goldfish),but if you want to do a fishy cycle go ahead but goldfish are bad because of how much amonia they put out,it will harm the fish.do you have a test kit?what is your amonia-nitrAt-nitrIte-ph readings?