Cycling with goldfish?

[Warborg]

Get your GFsome Gouramis, they are cheap, and are good for a 20.

Goldfish are NOT. No matter how you look at it, the fish will keep growing, which means those fish CAN reach 12+" in that tank. And it does happen.

Not always true, I have 4- 5inch goldfish that are over 3 years old that have been in a 55, 75, 125 and a 2600(pond) and they haven't grown in quite some time. I doubt they will reach 12 inches

A goldfish of 3" should have a 30 gallon... to itself.

This is crazy talk... a 3 inch fish by itself in a 30 gallon

 

[mshill90]

Not always true, I have 4- 5inch goldfish that are over 3 years old that have been in a 55, 75, 125 and a 2600(pond) and they haven't grown in quite some time. I doubt they will reach 12 inches

This is crazy talk... a 3 inch fish by itself in a 30 gallon

No it's not crazy.. think about the waste they produce.

that 3" fish will easily be 6" in a matter of months.

 

[Stateofficer1984]

Its just a gimmick... Nothing more than used filter media. You will still have to let the tank cycle though. Anyway I doubt by the time it reaches you, there will still be any live bacteria in there..

Ive used it in 3 aquariums so far adding fish the same day, I dont think I got lucky that many times!!!

Water always test perfect after a few hours!!!

 

[m1ste2tea]

cycling with goldfish is challenging, I have never tried it but I know I'd have a hard time holding steering the bicycle while holding a fishbowl but seriously I always have my two overgrown feeder comets that I use to cycle any tank. It works very well as long as the water has good aeration.

 

[Akilsmara]

use mollys, guppys for cycling your tank gold fish cannot tolerate nitrate and ammonia poisoning because they release huge amount of waste which causes the nitrate and ammonia level to rise in a new tank and mollys and guppys are very cheap than goldfish good luck

 

[FishFreak95]

Guppies and mollies are not cheaper than goldfish lol. Guppies and mollies are $2 - $3 and goldfish are 28¢.
I usually seed my filters with mature filter media. Maybe you could ask a friend with mature filter media for a piece of it to seed your filter.
I think the goldfish would be fine if 25% water changes were done every day. I would also return 5 of them because of the large amount of waste and ammonia they produce.

 

[SCGeordie]

Matt what is this stability product I haven't seen it an my lfs?

Seachem Stability basically 'seeds' beneficial bacteria.
I haven't been on here for a while so not sure how many more threads there are about Stability (for or against) so I am going by personal experience on this. I setup a 40g Breeder in Oct 2010 using 'Ace' Ammonia and Seachem Stability, Ammonia level was started at 4ppm on day 1, Stability was added each day as per instructions on the bottle (shake hard first for a good 5 minutes) by day 3 or 4 I was reading Nitrates and reduced the Ammonia to 2ppm, kept adding Stability each day. Day 5/6 Nitrite spiked and Nitrate/Ammonia started dropping. By day 8 I had 0ppm Ammonia and 0ppm Nitrite and a cycled tank.
Now this tank has had zero water changes untill one week ago, the filter (Magnum hob) has been cleaned twice, apart from that I simply topped up the tank with water treated with Prime whenever it needed, OK, it's pretty heavily planted with the whole of the back covered in a thick Java moss wall but my point is it cost me $1.50 for the Ammonia and maybe $7 for the Stability to produce a good strong colony of BB and it took only 8 days to do it! Why pay for a bunch of fish and put them through the stress of s fishy cycle when fishless is so much easier and cheaper and quicker?