just phoned my lfs to see about a plant to try and bring the nitrate level down.. he suggested a floater called "Watersprite".. anyone know about this, how it is with goldfish? we are going to be away for three days starting tomorrow, would it be OK with light out for three days? the tank is in the kitchen and it is quite bright, but not direct sunlight.

You can get a timer to turn on/off the aquarium lights while your gone. I would not put this plant in a goldfish because they will eat its delicate leaves. Won't last long with veggie loving fish.

thank you for your reply... I was wondering whether or not they would eat the plant... I'd hate to have them die from overindulging on its leaves while we were away...

B) I have seen it on the web as a plastic plant. Very beautiful!!!!

They won't kill themselves on the plant. Most "overeating" deaths are fish who die from poor water conditions brought about by rotting extra food, not b/c the fish ate itself to death, the plant won't do that.

thank you for your replies I just went to my lfs and bought a really healthy looking watersprite.. the fishes seem to like it too, hopefully it will help a bit with the nitrate and keep them occupied for the three days we will be away..

Watersprite, I find is very beautiful, I have no live plant's in my aquarium (but as I wish) if I did Watersprite would definetly be one of my choices.

I have watersprite in my tank, you don't have to float it, though it will grow that way and "planted" in the gravel. I found that mine gets brown and gross looking when it floats, so I decided to plant it. I didn't have problems with my goldies eating it, but my snail devoured the large mother plant! I tried to save it, but I got some babies off of it before it died, and now I have it in another tank that I am readying for bettas. I find that it grows very easily and also propagates fast...I don't have that much wattage of light on my tank, but it is still doing very well, so far, so good.

Also I think it is very pretty! I can't wait until the baby ones get bigger and leafier

A LFS owner told not to be too disappointed if water sprite didn't work out, especially if I didn't have a strongly lit tank. Apparently when it's happy it takes off and grows faster than the goldfish can nibble it back, but for many people it soon looks haggard and then dies.

I'm one of the latter group unfortunately. Rats.

Caroline in San Jose