Why did my goldfish die after three days?

I bought a goldfish to save it from being eaten. As far as I know, it was swimming around and doing fine at the shop.

I put it in a tank with rocks from my already cycled tank. It was 2.5 gallons, but as it was a tiny-tiny baby, that shouldn't have mattered.

Shortly after I put it in, it fell to the bottom and sat there for three days. Today, it died.

I tried my best. There was a light filter for water and oxygen. The temperature was 70 degrees. I checked the ammonia: yes, it was at "stress," but that is to be expected on an uncycled tank, and I'm not sure how that would kill the little guy, as until two weeks ago, I could NEVER get my main tank below 'stress' level, even after full water changes.

Everything was OK. The PH was fine, too.

I'm just stumped. Is it possible it was diseased/ill to begin with?

 

Good morning,

Sorry to hear about your Goldfish.

Any amount of ammonia can be harmful even fatal to your fish. An aquarium must be cycled with 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites and under 20 nitrates for fish to survive. Cycling takes time and may take as long as 6 to 8 weeks.

Yes, the fish may have been diseased but Ammonia Poisoning surely comes into play when fish are added to a tank that isn't cycled.

Goldfish are large waste producers and they should not be kept in anything less than 20 gallons for 1. Some types of Goldfish such as Commets may require even larger tank space.

https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/goldfish-care-sheet.167762/

Ken

 

Thanks for the information.

In the future, would this work: Take half of water out of filtered tank, put it in the other tank (with half rocks, decorations), add new water to each? I sometimes take as much as 1/3 for water changes, anyway.

I need to move my baby plecco over to a new ten gallon for the time being. He's TOO messy and I'm worried about him harming my other fish.

 

What kind of Pleco is it? They are major "waste" producers and 10 gallons isn't big enough for something that size.

To cycle the tank, though, would it be possible for you to take some of the filter media from the current tank's filter and put that in the filter for your new tank?

The filters I have on my main tank have 2 media cartridges in them. When I started up my 10 gallon betta tank, I cut up one of the media cartridges from the big tank and stuffed it in the basket with the new media to give it the bacteria boost.

If you can't do that, read up on Tetra SafeStart and how to use that to get your tank cycled before you add any fish.

 

Hello,

Here is a link on Seeding that goes into more detail for what Oscarsbud above is speaking about:
https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfi...-cycling-with-established-filter-media.66727/

The beneficial bacteria needed to sustain the tanks cycle is not in the water column but attached to all surface areas of the aquarium with the highest concentrations of it being in your filter. Using water from a cycled tank will not Seed the new aquarium.

Ken

 

Something else is that those feeder goldfish are not known for being healthy to begin with. They're severely overstocked in the tanks and poorly bred, besides getting little to no medical care,