hello all! need some advice

Hi all. I recently moved apartments abut 3 weeks ago and it came with a fish tank with one common goldfish. This fish has been severely mistreated. He's in a 15L (2.5g) tank and the owners hadn't lived in the place in almost a year and said he stopped by every week to give him enough food to last a few weeks.

I read all I could about goldfish care and instantly cleaned out his tank. He had large gravel(rocks) and ornaments filling almost half the tank and I think I cleared almost a liter of brown fudge out of there. I don't think they had cleaned the tank in almost a year. It's a miracle he's alive.

He was in serious distress when I stirred up the dirt and went through ammonia poisoning and nitrate poisoning. He's 3 maybe 4 inches now and I realize the tank is MUCH to small for him but I'm absolutely broke and can't even make rent so I can't spend a dime on new equipment.

I have cleared out most of the gravel (left about an inch or so) and cleaned the filter (air driven sponge) several times.

I don't have a test kit / water conditioner (i'm seriously that broke that i can't spend five bucks). I've been doing major water changes (with unconditioned tap water) daily but he still seems to be suffering from bad water conditions due to the cramped tank.

I love this little guy to death and he seems to understand I'm trying to make his life better. He eats from my hand and dances around whenever I come up to him (super cute), but it hurts me to watch him suffer. Periodically he darts around his tank and gets swollen/black around the eyes.

The tap water here is very clean and he doesn't seem to mind it (i let it sit for at least 12 hrs).. He always comes up to the surface and splashes around when I rain on him.

I'm getting him a proper tank as soon as I can but in the meantime any advice on how to make his life bearable? I'm putting him on a 3 days a week feeding schedule to keep waste to a minimum. Is it better to use untreated tap water and do like 30% water changes daily, than to leave him in the ammonia/nitrite?

The picture is a few weeks ago after I did the first cleanout. He has even lass gravel now, and I took out the ornament and filled the tank to the top.

 

Hi and Welcome to 3reef.

Let the tap water sit over night, that allows the chlorine to gas off some and lets the water temp heat up. Do smaller water changes each day a cup or two.
Goldfish beg for food but feed him tiny amounts twice a day.
Try not to do deep cleanings, fresh water tanks have a biological filter when you clean too much at once you deplete the systems natural ability to convert ammonia to nitrite and then to nitrates.

 

Where do you live?
I moved in a house once and someone left a poor fish like that. Nastiest water ever. I collected some rain water for it at the time and it went from depressed and sluggish to perky swimming around.
Good luck.. sounds like you're already on track. I don't know much about freshwater fish.
Btw I gave the owner of that fish a piece of my mind.

 

Hi. Thanks for the replies guys. I live in southern Norway. It's really hurting me to watch him stress like that. He's jolting around like he's being burned by the water(ammonia) and when he rests he sinks to the bottom all burned out(nitrite).. so mainly what I'm wondering is if it's still better to do small water changes and let him burn for a while or should I just keep doing huge water swaps and let the good bacteria catch up slower. Or would a 100% swap with rain water (while leaving the filter and gravel untouched) be best.. : (

 

I would take Corailline's advice and just do smaller water changes. You need to allow the cycle to complete. FWIW, I don't think the container is outrageously small for his size.