Help! Pet shop lied to us.

Check out this thread

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?84598-Freshwater-cycling

You can go with a fish less cycle but you can also get some small, hardy fish like a couple guppies and that will work too.

There is a product called safe start made by Tetra, it will give yor cycle a jump start also. Each small bottle treats 15 gallons and costs $5-10 but it is worth it. I started keeping fish without cycling first too. I only lost a couple but the big things to remember if you don't go fish less cycle is only a fish or two at a time, keep up on testing until all but nitrate hits zero, make sure you do water changes to dilute the ammonia, and don't over feed.

Edit: I would like to add, there are only a few types of bacteria in a bottle that people trust and the rest don't do much of anything. The only one I've seen locally is tetra safe start (many people on this forum swear by it and it helped me out noticeably) so don't listen to a fish store employee about other ones.

For chemicals (besides safe start which you will only use once) just get a chemical called prime. It literally does everything you need. It will detoxify ammonia and nitrite and condition water that you add to the aquarium. If your ammonia or nitrite is too high prime can also be sed once every 24 hours to detoxify it. There are directions on the bottle but for ammonia I usually dose 2-3x regular dose and for nitrite I dose 5x normal dose.

Good luck and feel free to ask for any clarification. There are many people on here much more experienced than I am and I'm sure they will offer their suggestions

Also make sure you research what fish you are wanting thoroughly. I don't know much about goldfish but I think many of them need very large tanks and some can grow to way over a foot (if I'm not mistaken) and live over 2 decades

At this point I would HIGHLY suggest going the fishless cycle route. You've already witnessed first hand what happens to fish in a cycling environment.

Probably the easiest way to kick start the cycle would be to add established filter media, gravel, or whatever hard surface you can get your hands on from a cycled tank. Some stores will help, some wont but you can also ask around if you know others with healthy aquariums.

There are "bacteria in a bottle" additives out there advertised to cycle your tank within a couple of days, but I wouldn't always trust those. In any case, you started out well by testing the water for ammonia/nitrite/nitrate. Which test kit did you purchase?

Don't worry too much about what happened, we all make mistakes when we first start out in the hobby. But definitely take anything this store says with a grain of salt!

Get a heater if you get any fish besides goldfish, preferably adjustable but not required. make sure to condition your water that you add (right now it isn't much of a worry because no fish are in it) with prime.

Prime is just a godsend. I had at least 5 chems and then joined here and found out prime did everything they did and more and now all I really have is prime for water changes and neutralizing chem spikes.

Feel free to ask about anything on here. I've only been here about a month and have learned so much

Do you happen to know which filter it is?

If you do decide to use fish to cycle, keep in mind you will need to keep ammonia and nitrite at a minimum. This requires at least daily testing (using a liquid test kit) and water changes whenever needed.

jpappy789 said:

Do you happen to know which filter it is?

If you do decide to use fish to cycle, keep in mind you will need to keep ammonia and nitrite at a minimum. This requires at least daily testing (using a liquid test kit) and water changes whenever needed.

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Exactly, I also dosed prime regularly because it will render the ammonia harmless to fish but still leave it in a form that can be processed by beneficial bacteria (which is what gets built up in a cycle) so it still allows it to grow.

Prettykitty said:

Thank you so much. Did a little reading online and saw that white cloud fish might be a good one to start with? Really don't trust the pet shop guys any more at all. Have been doing partial water changes and the levels are coming down. Ammonia was at 8 ppm at one stage :jaw:Would love to get the fish in this weekend. Have a filter and a light and two plants ( one plastic one silk). Gravel down the bottom. Anything else I need? Total novice when it comes to fish. Was always a cat girl

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A goldfish needs at least 10 gallons of water per goldfish (they create a lot of waste) so it is no wonder they did not last very long in such a small aquarium.. there's not much you can place in a small aquarium such as that one. Does it have a filter? White Cloud Danios are very hardy fish but even they would die very quickly in 8 ppm of ammonia.. also White Clouds are a schooling fish and enjoy swimming so even a small fish such as that would more than likely die due to having no other fish to school with or having enough room to swim around..

Honestly if you are a first timer.. bigger is better.. the smaller you go harder it is really to get set up, ammonia will kill fish much faster as it builds up to higher amounts with less water..