Goldfish Water In Tropical New Tank?

[Amaria]

Hi
My new tropical fish tank has been running fishless for 12 days and the nitrite being quite high for a few days, but not moving one way or another...
I decided to speed things up and went to an aquarist/stockist....who gave me some water from an established tank.
Big detail : that was from a Goldfish tank and it now looks quite messy in there...PLus, I have just read some scary info about the differences of species
I am just wondering if this is OK as the requirements are pretty different between the fish I will have and the Goldfish
Was this a mistake and if yes, what do I do?
Many thanks
Amaria

 

[Timmy_Bee]

Don't take my word as gospal as im quite new the the whole game, but i believe water isn't going to change anything. What you need is some filter media. And so long as there are no know parasites in the tank from where you got the filter from, it shouldn't matter what fish were in there before.

Have a look at the pinned topic detailing members willing to donate mature media and see if you can get some

 

[Gvilleguy]

Hi - welcome to the forum!!

The vast majority of helpful bacteria you are trying to grow reside in the media of the tank filter, and a small percentage on surfaces like gravel and ornaments. Not much at all is actually free floating in water. I suppose you might have picked up a few more bacteria to help seed your effort, but in my opinion it would have been better to get filter media from them rather than 'used' water. Hopefully this only added a bit of dirt to your tank and nothing else. I don't think it matters that is was from a goldfish tank, though.

My biggest advice to you is be patient on the cycle! I'm not sure if you are doing fishless or fish-in. But cycling works - you just have to stick with the plan.

 

[Bobtastic]

It's a bit late to ask if it's ok, as it's done. The only problem that you could have is with disease.

Also there isn't really very much in the way of bacteria in the water. They are found in filter media, decor and substrate. So getting water from an established tank (unless its water direct from the filter with a heavy amount of malum) wont make any different to your bacteria colony.

U'd be better of getting some donor media (eg spounge) from a mature tank, and then place it in your tank.

If you are confident that the water comes from a clean tank, then I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree, good advice above. Biomedia from filters in goldfish tanks and biomedia from filters in tropical fish tanks contain the same two species of autotrophic bacteria on the media surfaces and you can move back and forth in cloning filters.

The messier the goldfish water was, the better it might have been for a very small seeding since the autotrophic bacteria can ride on the debris you are seeing as messy - however, in tank water and its debris, you have a much higher percentage of new organic debris that is being broken down by heterotrophic bacteria and does not yet have any established autotrophs on it like it would later inside the filter (the filter provides the more concentrated environment of ammonia and oxygen flow that the bacteria better thrive in.)

This is why messy water from a filter cleaning and messy water from tank and gravel is not quite the same thing. The mess in the filter is much, much farther along in the process of harboring some small autotrophic bacterial colonies.

Where did you find your ammonia for your fishless cycle Amaria? Boots, Homebase, Ace Hardware?

~~waterdrop~~