new tank, dying fish, cant start cycle

Question
hey, from your description this is prolly not your area of expertise but the other volunteers seem to be on vacation. first of all we bought a tank prolly two weeks ago got all the decorations that we wanted, got it set up with water and had it running for about a week to start the cycle (not knowing that we needed fish in there to start the cycle) so we went to the petstore got about eight gold fish for a 55 gallon tank. i know its alot but we expected them to  dye, thing is they were only in there for about a day or two and they were all dead. so i drained all the water and cleaned to stones with a syphon figuring it had to be something in the stone since we didn't rinse them (though we didn't do that with the first tank and it started without any problems#. so i drained the tank cleaned the rocks filled the tank with tap water from a hose outside. added some dechlorinator #as i did last time only last time i put a bunch of other things that came with the tank but this last time just the dechlorinator# and got fish the same day, only this time i noticed them starting to die #actually one did matter of fact# so i took the others out and put them into the established tank and they came back to actin like they normally would. i don't know what to do anymore about, at a complete loss, i cant find anything on the web about this problem, nobody at my local pet store can help they just keep telling me to syphon my rocks #which i have done already#.

would the amount of plants or variety of the plants have anything to do with my fish dying problems. not sure what kind of plants, did care to ask but i have about three small one from petsmart, four large ones from petsmart as well, like six or seven bulb plants #from walmart), and a long thin leafed one that came from petorama that i had in my established tank that i had transferred over, as well as all the bulb plants.

if you need anymore information please do not hesitate to ask i want to solve this frustrating problem so i can start moving my fish over into this new tank. any help that you can offer is completely appreciated, as well as anything that you can direct me to. thank you for your time and research :)  

Answer
Hi Bobby,
This is my area of expertise.  I will review my description to see where it says it isnt and fix it.  If all the fish die in a day or two, it means it is your water quality.  Did you add dechlorinator/water conditioner to the water to remove the chlorine and chloramine?  These 2 substances are VERY toxic to fish which kill fish in a 24/48 hr period.  You cant put fish in straight tap water.  It contains chlorine to prevent bacteria from growing.  Even a small amount is deadly to fish.  Goldfish do have a high bioload and the water will be high in ammonia which causes death by ammonia intoxication but it does not happen over a 2 day period.  I dont believe it is the decorations or gravel killing them.  

To cycle a tank is a timely process.  Here is a topic about cycling that may help you that I send to people with problems or just need more info about cycling.

There is two ways to cycle, one with fish and one without fish.  The reason why you want to cycle first is because you want to grow all the beneficial bacteria that is needed to break down the toxins that are released into the tank.  The toxins are from fish food and fish waste that are broken down.  It all breaks down into ammonia.  If a tank is not cycled, all the fish could die of an ammonia intoxication.  That's why people wonder why all their fish die within a week.  There are 2 sets of bacteria that you want.  The first set of beneficial bacteria breaks down ammonia-to-nitrite and the second set breaks down nitrite-to-nitrate.  Ammonia and nitrite are very toxic to fish, however nitrate is not nearly as toxic.  In a cycled tank, there is never any ammonia or nitrite because of the bacteria present that are doing their jobs.

Lets say you first start out a 25g tank with 25 small fish, 25 small fish is a lot for a tank that has no beneficial bacteria.  Because of the lack bacteria, the tank will go into an ammonia overload and the fish will die.  In a CYCLED tank, the beneficial bacteria is there to break it down.  

Now lets say, you start out a 25g tank with 5 fish.  5 is a small number and the amount of ammonia released is smaller.  This allows the tank to gradually grow bacteria without the tank going into an overload.

To cycle with fish, you start with a small amount of fish to let the tank cycle, you do 20% water changes EVERY 3 days to exchange old water with fresh new water to lower ammonia levels.  You keep on doing this to keep the toxic water at therapeutic level.  Ammonia and nitrite levels must never go higher than 0.50ppm.  Cycling with fish can take anywhere from a month or two months.  

To cycle without fish, you use a bottle of pure unscented ammonia.  So instead of using the fish's waste and the fish food as a source of ammonia, we use the ammonia itself.  New aquarists would think at first, "Why am I using a cleaning agent to put it in my aquarium??"  It does sound very odd at first, but it is very effective to cycle a tank.  You add enough ammonia to reach 5ppm concentration.  From here you wait until you see a decline in ammonia and a rise in nitrite.  Which means the first set is growing, you continue to wait and you will see a decline in nitrite and a rise in nitrate.  Once you achieve nitrate it means your tank is cycled since you have both sets of bacteria doing their jobs.  You must maintain the ammonia level at 5ppm throughout the process.  You stop adding ammonia when you start to see nitrate readings.  You must never go higher than 5ppm of ammonia.  Higher values actually halt the bacteria growing process.  Fishless cycling is faster than cycling with fish because you can leave the ammonia at a high concentration to allow more food for the bacteria to grow.  Because you have no fish, you dont have to worry about fish dieing.

To measure these amounts.  There is a test kit called API Freshwater Master Kit sold in stores.  It is liquid testing.  Test strips are very ineffective and inaccurate.  

There are a few ways to speed up the process.  You can take used filter media from a well-established disease free tank and put it in yours.  This media is saturated in both sets of beneficial bacteria and can really jump start your cycle.  This is called "seeding".  If you dont plan to seed, the bacteria is already in the water, just in a very very very very small amount.  Also, you can increase the temperature to 80F.   

Let me know if you have any further questions.
-Matt-