To OP, you need to upgrade to a
real tank as soon as possible.
For a fancy goldfish, minimal 20~30 gallon for each.
For a common goldfish, minimal 40~55 gallon each.
Your fish will die within weeks in a fish bowl. They shouldn't even sell these fish bowl, since it always kills the fish.
A filter is a must if you want to keep the fish alive at all in captivity. Without it, ammonia produced by fish will always build up no matter what you do, and the fish will get killed by this toxic produced by itself.
(05-11-2012, 04:47 PM)Fishbone Wrote: I am certainly not the fish expert here, but from all I have understood with the fish I have kept, at some point you just have to let the tank cycle. The more water changes you do the more you will slow down and inhibit the cycling. And if you use a water conditioner, you may remove all the ammonia, but then the tank will never cycle.
Goldfish are pretty hardy little critters. He may be fine. But the more you mess with the tank, the longer it is going to take to get a nitrogen cycle established.
That would be not quite accurate.
We always recommend cycle the tank before getting the fish, which is what we refer to fishless cycle. Unless the tank is huge and the fish load is low, in that case cycle with fish won't do much harm if done properly.
He has a puny fish bowl, without doing water change on daily basis, or even multiple water change on daily basis, the fish won't last long at all. Although he must do partial water change to avoid shock the fish with sudden change.
You confused water conditioner with some ammonia reducer products.
Water conditioner usually only neutralize chlorine in the tap water, and makes it safe to be added into the fish tank. Only SeaChem Prime and very few other water conditioner actually have the ability to turn ammonia into ammonium for 24~48 hours, then the less harmful ammonium will revert back into the toxic ammonia. So water conditioner does not remove ammonia at all.
Keep doing water change multiple times every day will surely slow down the nitrogen cycle, but it will not stall the cycle. Since the fish produce ammonia on a constant base, there is always ammonia in the water. Even if you do 100% water change at once (which is not recommended in order to avoid shock the fish), the moment you put fish back into the tank, the ammonia start to raise again. that is why water change is never substitute for having a cycled filter. Bottom line, if he wants to keep the fish alive for more than a few weeks in that fish bowl, he must do partial water change every day.
In fact, I recommend him to do partial water change two time a day if he can't get hands on Prime. If he can get Prime, then partial water change of 30~50% once a day might help, since all the ammonia will be in the form of ammonium.
However,
Without upgrading the tank, or get a good filter, nothing will help the fish to stay alive for long. The frequent water change with Prime is still highly recommended after the tank upgrade and the installation of a proper filter, until the tank is cycled.
I also recommend to get
Tetra SafeStart to speed up the nitrogen cycle. (
after you upgrade to a minimal 20 gallon tank, and have a filter)
