Last month I rescued these three small goldfish fish from a family I was dogsitting for (basically I walked into their house and they had three goldfish in a half gallon fishbowl with no filter with the intention for them to die) It made me quite sad so I asked if I could take them, but it does mean that I did not get a chance to properly cycle my tank before getting them
20 gallon tank (currently hunting for a bigger one on the facebook marketplace), no heater, no plants or decorations yet besides sand. Have a canister filter
I was doing pretty well on water perimeters the first 2 weeks but I have been testing recently to see a SUPER high nitrite level, like 5 ppm (the test tubes are a very dark magenta). I've been doing nearly daily 30% water changes and i will test the water I am putting in and it will have no nitrites but after the water change I will retest and it will be back to 5 ppm nitrites in the tank? I have been using extra water conditioner and beneficial bacteria but truly nothing will make this number go down. ive been feeding them less since this started as well
thankfully the fish seem to be doing fine though they are still happily swimming around
Is there anything I can do besides more water changes? Is there a certain way to do water changes that I am not doing correctly? I haven't owned fish since I was little so this is my first time actually taking care of them i just watched a bunch of youtube to learn