Planted Gold fish 75g

gsparsan

gsparsan

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Dec 2, 2007
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I am setting up a 75g to put the in my office. Its not going to be a display tank but thats no reason for it not to be pretty. I need your help with the choice of plants. The objective is to get it up and running within a tight budget. I have recup a secondhand hood complete with filter, 2x40W tubes and a 900L/h powerhead. I also have 2 UGF.

I'm planning to run one of the UGF using air stone and the other using the powerhead. The hood-mounted filter will run from the same power head. It will draw water from the UGF and pump it through the hood filter.

I'm going to use Aquaclay as substrate as I already have it. I can add an iron/pottassium rich substrate below it. I alredy have some but will probably need more.

So the choice of plants are limited by:

1. Only about 1W/gal (as many hours as suitable)
2. Under gravel filtration.
3. Fish~ 2 6" comets and a 4" common pleco (currently have 1 comet and 1 pleco)
4. Limited choice of filtration. Only one I've managed to find is API Leaf zone.
 
Thats what I already have. The last pic shows the comet, the pleco and the driftwood going into the new tank.

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Interesting. I had heard that goldfish don't go along with planted tanks. I had heard that they'll uproot and/or eat the plants.
 
It seems to vary from fish to fish. You can either try plants that they won't eat (I hear Java fern and onion plant are usually ignored) or plants that grow too fast for them to completely destroy (hornwort, maybe anacharis).
 
Goldfish and plants usually do not go hand in hand. If you are insistent on planting a goldfish tank, then I would do as suggested and only use plants that the fish will most likely ignore or ones that grow really fast.

Marinemom
 
Thats what problem is about. What are those plants that the goldfish won't eat, that will be ok with the lighting level AND ok with UGF. I know goldfish don't eat Amazon sword and Java fern. Anubias are too hard for them to eat as well. Giant Eel is supposed to be hard as well but my goldfish took 2 weeks in total to completely finish it! I have plenty of elodea that I plan to put in. I don't mind if they eat them as I have plenty and they grow really fast. Not sure if I can get java fern here.

The problem is not just the goldfish. Its the UGF and the low light as well. I need to find plants that will fit the bill. Here is where I am with the setup. It came as a pleasant surprise last night when I removed the wood from the existing tank to find an amazon sword attached to it. I didn't know swords can attach to wood as well. The wood is too big for the tank but I like it and I think it can work if I plant it right. Plus I can't possibly separate the pleco from the wood.

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i cant help name any low light plants that goldfish wont eat(not very knowledgable about plants yet)... but i can say your tank scape looks really good so far.
good luck
edit: also, id recommend getting some more filtration if possible. im not sure how good hood filters are. it seems like you might need some more movement in the tank, and plecos and comets are messy fish. but like i said.. im not really farmiliar with hood filters so you might be in the clear.
 
If it was me I would be using java fern and anubias (possibly even setting up a mesh wall in the corners to plant with fern and moss to soften the edges) getting roofing slate and tying java moss to it for the foreground (removeable and easily cleaned, I grow them out in my QT) and then calling it a day. You don't need a lot of different plants and these work well in this situation. Java fern is tougher than anubias but anubias should work and there is a variety to choose from though I wouldn't plant in the substrate.
 
The eating is only part of the problem. The larger issue is that goldfish are just naturally diggers, and it doesn't matter what you plant or how large the root system is or what's holding it down, they will tear it up. Especially comets.
I've tried real, silk and plastic plants in my tank, and it usually takes less than one day for everything to be floating. I pretty much redecorate the tank every day.
I have heard of people having good luck keeping fancies with plants, but even there it's iffy. However, if you can manage to keep the plants tied to the driftwood or firmly anchored somehow, you might have good luck with java fern. When I put cuttings from my 10 gal planted in the big tank, my goldies ignored them for almost a week before I threw them out.

By the way, I would stay away from slate. One of my female commons sliced her lip open pretty badly a couple years ago when I tried using slate. The edges are sharper than they look.

Also, I'm not sure about using UGFs with goldfish. Even with my two XP3 canisters, I end up with an inch of poo sludge at the bottom when I clean them out weekly. An undergravel would probably turn out to be a nitrate factory. Plus you have no chemical filtration with them, which is extremely important with goldfish.

Anyway, the tank looks really gorgeous and I think you're off to a great start, no matter what.
 
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