I set up a 7 gallon bowl with 2 goldfish about 6 weeks ago.. I now know that's a bad start but, of course, at the time, the lovely LFS told me it was all a-ok! Anyway, I have just started to see nitrites (at .25) and have been concerned with not letting them get too high so I added some salt as I had seen advised on goldfish forums. I was just wondering, will adding salt delay the cycling of the tank? Will it kill the bacteria and therefore take longer for nitrites to convert to nitrates? What is the best method to follow? I wish those fish store people told me a bit about goldfish and cycling before they sold them to me! They don't even care if they send these poor fish off for the slaughter!!
Salt and the biological cycle
- Thread starter satine333
- Start date
most lfs dont care. they want your fish to die so you go and buy new ones. the only way to get rid of nirities is doing water changes. salt will help the nirities be less toxic i think. keep checking the levels and keep doing water changes for now. you could always try to take them back.
Yes salt will help, but I agree with mgamer. The best way is to do lots of partial water changes as your tank is cycling. I'd do 50% or more daily if I were in your place. One thing that's not helping you now is that goldfish are huge waste producers. Just keep on monitoring yopur water levels and try to keep them as low as possible. It takes a lot of work so good luck. If you have plans of keeping the goldfish please get a bigger tank. 
the problem isn't just a bad 'start' ... it can only result in a bad finish as well. two goldfish simply cannot survive for very long in a 7 gallon bowl. i'd urge you to fix this situation rather than concern yourself with the 'cycle' since, despite a successfull development of your bilogical filter, the fish are going to die.
you've got two choices really: (1) return the GF in exchange for a betta or (2) get rid of the bowl in exchange for a thirty gallon tank. you need to understand that a couple of goldfish will require 30 gallons in order to manage a life and that in a bowl, a betta is about the only fish that can survive.