TennThunder

Hey, I used the SafeStart so of course to have fish in there, have some zebra danios in there and was wondering would you guys recommend using feeder goldfish also during it? For all the fishless cycle people, I tried this method and it just did not work for me in cycling it. So using the TSS is my last resort. Thanks for any help.

Nick G

Danios are Tropical and Goldfish aren't. I wouldn't recommend it.

TennThunder

right, i'll get more Danios, they are good little, hardy fish, thanks Nick.

Nick G

Danios are great first fish for a tank. I've always kept them in one tank or another.

TennThunder

yeah, they are really cool little fish for sure. They seem more hardy than my giant danios, it's really strange, you would think the bigger fish would be sturdier.

Mike19

You probably cycled the fishless tank wrong or not long enough. be prepared to do 50% water changes daily if you decide to take the cycling with fish path.

TennThunder

Before you assume I did something wrong, think twice before you make a statement like that, especially when I don't know you and you don't know me. I followed exactly what they said, to add pure ammonia to 5.0 PPM (keep it there) and then nitrites appear in a few weeks. Well it didn't for me so be it. When your ammonia never decreases after 3 weeks, you question if that method works.

Fishlover423

I have had goldfish living with my tropicals(also zebra danios) with no problems for 3 months now. :|

agabr123

with a 120 gallon tank as it says in your aquarium info, your cycle could take a very, very long time, especially considering the sheer amount of bacteria that needs to build up on your filter. i've had a 10 gallon that took longer than three weeks to cycle, so a 120 coud potentially take quite a while. if you want to speed it up, i've heard that tetra safestart works well.

EDIT: lol i didn't see that you had used safestart already! my bad!

TennThunder

Hey appreciate the help. Yeah, I'm getting nitrites for the first time ever so I'm excited and hoping the SafeStart works. It's frustrating for sure the cycling thing!!

TennThunder

Cool, there are some really cool larger goldfish they sell, I'd like to mix them, but don't want to take the chance bc of the different water temps.

JESS01

I don't like many goldfish exept the fantails. They don't REALLY appeal me.

TennThunder

Yeah, they get expensive too, some of those goldfish for sure.

shih-tzu mom

TennThunder; The feeder goldfish also carry a lot of disease lol so not a good idea to use them. Stick with your Danio's .Also Tenn the goldfish-have a very heavy bio-load [messy fish] lol I have a lot of goldies and if you have read my threads they are lovely fish and can be very nice in the c/w tanks and they do have a lot of Fancies;to choose from-ex; red-caps, oranda's, black moore's, fantails,still a lot i might not have listed- but they will not stand up to a cycle, IMO bella

gremlin

Goldies can be a fun fish if you have the room. Even the feeder fish, but you have to be very picky or you end up buying 10 just to get 1 that stays alive. Most of my goldies in my pond started out as feeder fish, but I would spend at least 30 minutes at the store watching them to pick the healthiest ones. If there was any sign of disease in the tank, I wouldn't buy any that day. I still had about a 5-10% mortality rate with the feeders.