HI

Well this is my very first post and I think I need to ask advice from all you keepers.

Firstly I believe that I have been ill advised and have set up my tank etc perhaps wrongly. I took advice from a so called fish keeper for several decades and after reading on the internet a few articles about the care of goldfish I now realise that perhaps I could have done this a better way.

I have a 20 gallon tank, good filteration and air rocks, air supply that blows bubbles etc and I have several cold water fish in this tank. Now the tank was set up yesterday and by that I mean filled and all systems switched on. Within 5 hours of this tank being set up the fish were moved in. After doing some research I am told that your supposed to leave your tank set up for about a week before the fish move in so that healthy bacteria has time to form etc. Well unfortunately the fish are in and seem to be doing relatively well. I have included some aquasafe solution to neutralise the chlorine etc.

Are my fish now at risk? and is there anything I can do to make their conditions more comfortable? or am i just better carrying on as I am now theyre allready in and hope for the best?

The 2nd thing I need to ask is that sometimes I notice some of the fish are shuddering quickly from side to side, not shimmering but sort of shuddering rather fast from left to right. Is this natural for fancy gold fish? or is it a sign of stress? or could it perhaps be becuase they are new to the tank and need some time to settle down. If they shouldnt be doing this, is there anything again that I can do to help them?

Many thanks

Andrea

How do your fish look? Are any of their fins clamped down? You never want to see a fish "shuddering" and swimming radically, ESPECIALLY if they're new to a tank. How many goldfish do you have?

For a 20 gallon, you'll looking at only about 2 goldfish at most and they may still quickly outgrow the tank!

Also, be sure that your filter goes through at least 200 GPH to help filter all the water that's in your tank.

If you can, test the water parameters for your fish. You'll need testers for at LEAST ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and pH.

These are the readings you want:

0 ammonia
0 nitrite
less than 20 nitrate
7 - 7.5 pH that DOES NOT fluctuate

What is happening is that your tank is beginning to cycle and you'll find that in a few days your tank may go pretty crazy and your fish will become stressed.

Check your water and do 20-50% water changes every other day. If you find that you still can't get the numbers in a good places with that, do MORE water changes. Please remember to match pH, temperature, and remove chlorine when doing those changes.

Please keep us updated with your fish!

You can have fish in the tank from when you first set it up and I think most people new to fish-keeping do that because they don;t realise the benefits of cycling the tank without fish.

Nenn mentioned about ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. This link will give you more detailed information about cycling Cycling a Tank

Basically all new tanks need to be cycled and during this period ammonia and nitrite levels will rise. Both are harmful to fish. Having fish already in the tank means more work for you as you will need to test the water regularly for pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and carry out partial water changes when levels get too high. If you don't do this the fish will get stressed and become ill, so it is very important. Lots of people cycle a tank with fish, and its perfectly possible, just a bit more work for you.

HI

I think my tank must be more than 20 gallons if its only able to take 2 fish. The tank is 3 foot long, 2 foot high and 1.5feet width. Its a very big tank so maybe ive completely estimated the gallons wrong.

Ive noticed that the temperature of the tank in the house seems to be around 75 degrees where as yesterday it was only at 64 degrees. I asked my dad about this shuddering, its not shimmering and the fins are fine, not clamped inwards or anything. They all seem pretty happy its just that a couple are shuddering as if they were headbanging side to side. Also the water appears to have become a little bit cloudy.

My dad wondered if the males were showing off and had released milt into the water as he used to breed tropical and sometimes this would happen. I wonder if this is true seeing as the water temperature has risen. I am going to switch the lights off to hopefully bring the water back down to 64 where it was yesterday and see what happens.

The fish do seem healthy, no signs of disease or injury or anything.

Andrea

update

Ive measured the tank

Length - 31.5 inches
Height - 18inches
width - 14 inches

calculated online I think it holds more to 30 gallons

Andrea

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is that about 67 gallons? You're looking at about 6 to 7 fancies MAX. How many fish do you have?

As far as the cloudiness, that's not milt. Goldfish rarely breed in tanks. What you may be seeing is a bacterial bloom. Go have your parameters checked IMMEDIATELY. If it is a bloom, you'll probably see pretty high ammonia on your readings. You'll want to get it down as low as possible with water changes so that your fish won't be affected in the upcoming weeks during the cycle. I recommend not using any anti-ammonia chemicals or tank attachments as that may inhibit good-bacterial growth. If the numbers are good then the bloom shouldn't hurt your fish, the floating bacteria are just going out of their minds eating all the available ammonia and nitrite.

EDIT:

Oops, just recalculated -- That's about 34 gallons, so no more than 3 goldfish! You'll want at least 10 gallons per fancy (round-bodied) and 20 per common (slim-bodied)

Your tank is 34 US gallons, which can hold a maximum of three fancy goldfish.
I agree with Nenn, if your tank has gone cloudy check your params now. This happened in my still cycling tank and ammonia reached 4ppm (lethal level). I had a few days of having to monitor the tank params twice a day and carrying out very regular water changes just to keep my fish alive.

Hi

I have been out and purchased a water testing kit today and carried out the analysis. The levels were all too high so I have taken measures to rectify it immediately. I now have a ph. nitrate, nitrite and ammonia levels within normal parameters.

I have also watched this shimmering intensely and I find that the fish only shimmer in one area of the tank. This is the left back corner at the opposite end of the tank to the filters. If I turn off the filter and stop the current the fish do not shimmer what so ever. The only start this behaviour in that one area of the tank.
I dont know if Im mad or not but it actually looks like they enjoy to be caught in this area as some of them keep deliberately going to it. As soon as they swim out of this area they are graceful without any shimmy.

Could it be that they like being caught in the current? Could it actually be the current that causes the shimmy? is this OK or do I need to make more adjustments to the tank?

Many thanks

Andrea

Some fish will avoid the current while others appear to enjoy it, I don;t think this should be a problem. Keeping checking your params. For the time being I suggest checking them twice a day. As the tank cycles this can obviously be reduced.

If that's the only place the fish appear to be acting abnormally, you can put a plant decoration there to keep the fish from swimming to that corner too often. With a tank your size, I imagine you have a medium size filter that does quite a bit of a current, but I'd be surprised if there were places in your tank that WERE NOT peaceful.

One way I've heard from people in order to get an idea about where the current is the hardest is to tie a small button to a length of string and drag it through the water. The button will be pushed around by the current and it'll give you an idea of how the water is moving around in the tank.

I'm glad to hear your that you're dealing with the cycling quite well and I hope that you and your fish will be very happy! Good luck on the fishkeeping!

All I can say is hang in there! Many, many people before you (myself included) started out in the same situation as you have right now. Luckily, Koko's is a great place for info- read up on fish care here, get advice from people here, follow what you learn, and in no time you'll be an expert at caring for your new goldies.