You think 25 2" goldfish is too many for 250 gallons of water?
You wouldn't think so but like I said I don't use fish to cycle my tanks. I see no point in killing fish when adding nonfoaming ammonia does the same thing in about the same amount of time. Also cheaper and less time consuming.
When fractions of ppm of NH4 and NH3 are toxic it doesn't take much to stress or kill fish.
That said goldfish are notorious for carrying disease and parasites and may have as suggested already been stressed. Another reason why I do a fishless cycle. I have a sibling that occasionally sells tropical fish for Walmart. Says their fish are constantly dying and Walmart doesn't seem to care. Also lots of people bringing them back that have no clue about
new tank syndrome.
I need to get some more test strips to check the levels but I would not have thought they could have shot that up that quick as small as they are but you never know.
Please don't take offense to this but I don't understand how you would expect to cycle a tank without testing the water. And don't waste your money on test strips. Go with an API master test kit like this for around $20.00.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-API-Freshwat...=item41704fde5bLast year I just used left of FHM and GSH from a fishing trip, then I added my Tilapia. Then again Tilapia are very forgiving so that probably helped.
The joke among the people I know that raise tilipia is you can grow them in gasoline. LOL I mean really in some systems they are used to eat the excretement of the fish upstream...
I did noticed about 5 gold fish and 1 rosy red (they must have slipped this in on me as a goldfish)
I need to get some grow beds setup to help with the nitrates as well plus I want to give them a shot anyway, but I may use my fingerling grow out tank for that since I do not have a filter for the smaller tank.
Getting the tank cycled should be your first concern. Nitrates which are the primary vehicle for plat growth won't show up in any significant useful amounts until after the tank is cycled and fish are being fed. And they are pretty benign to the fish anyway compared to ammonia and nitrites.
