Hi, I was just wondering if there is any kind of house plant safe for the tank. I was at work, and I noticed a HUGE fern. I thought to myself ,"If I could just take a few clippings , they would be so nice to have in my tank." But then I thought about the pesticides and outdoor effects on the plant. So if it were steralized would a few clippings be okay? I dont know if they are toxic to goldies or if they can live without the roots. Any ideas? :monkey

as far as i know theres no house plants that live long under water, though im sure some people will say otherwise. i have heard that cuttings from the goose foot plant can survive for a short period.

Hmmm my mom has a plant on the kitchen counter that sits in a pot with just water..its roots are in the water but the leaves are above water? Possibly a species similar to lillies?

There are a number of houseplants that can grow with their roots in water only. But these plants are really not suited for an aquarium. The plants do not like their leaves submerged - they eventually die and rot and add waste to a tank. (just like when you have a bouquet of flowers and the leaves on the stems are underwater in a vase - they rot and get foul quite quickly)

There are also a group of plants known as Emergent - or plants that have parts that rise above the water - at least a certain times of the year. These are very specialized plants, also, and not your general houseplant variety.

Generally, I would not use any plant that is not strictly an aquatic plant - a totally submersed type. There are many that are easy to grow, quite cheap to purchase, and very beautiful in a tank.

I know lots of people that use pothos in their betta and goldie tanks. It does tend to go south after a while when totally submerged. Don't remember how long that takes. I have pothos and peace lillies in my goldies' plant filter with just their roots in the water.

Do you have any recomendations? I have 2 different swords and 2, more like 2 parts, of moneywort, and 1 anachris
I had 3 anachris plans but they were quickly eaten.]As well as most of my swords]
I will never buy another m.wort there is only 2 stems left of them. I am thinking of a nice full plant, or more swords.I caant find any anubius that everyone is so fond of , or the java moss.I have a Petsmart, Petco, and a private pet store nearby, but I have never seen them there.

Try to find some local fish clubs, there are usually tons of people that have live plants and will be willing to give or sell you some. I've ordered plants online, but they always seem to do best when I buy them from someone local.

Otherwise, places to order online are www.aquabotanic.com and www.azgardens.com, I know there are more places but those are the two I mainly use.

Ditto on the local fish clubs. Last month I picked up some chain swords for 75 cents and some salvenia for a quarter.

You'll probably want to go with fast growing plants. Hornwort is pretty tough. I also like wysteria and najas grass. Java fern is slow growing, but a lot of goldie people have good luck with goldies not eating it.

What you might consider doing is setting up a plant grow out tank. Put a compact fluorescent daylight bulb over it and use goldie water. That way you can grow plants and add the extras to the goldie tank and it doesn't matter if they eat them.

I feed my goldies duckweed, salvenia and frogbit daily and they love to eat those. So far, I have about 15 varieties of plants in the goldie tank and they don't eat them. dunno why not.

Thanks, that sounds like a good I dea : .Both, actually. How would I go about finding a fish club? I can't say I've ever seen any notices for them. Also, I have thought about a second tank for plants [my small one 10 gal, is on loan to my niece. Would it need filtration? I know I've tried to grow the broken pieces of my moneywort in a vase and the water just got green and gooey.Could I use a big bucket?I guess thats a little risky with a light over it. :goldfish

I found my local aquarium club via a web search. You might ask around at the local pet stores.

I was using a rubbermaid tub for quite a while. Used goldie water in it with no water circulation and made a DIY carbon dioxide generator out of a 2 liter pop bottle. A compact flourescent daylight bulb should work fine. Maybe a clip on lamp? I'm using one of those tall living room lamp things that has 3 fixtures on adjustable arms for my plant filter. needs to be something stable for sure.

A south window woud work great. Both my 20 gallon tanks get direct sunlight most of the day now and the plants are very happy.

Was it pea soup algae?

A vase may not have enough surface area.

I feel like I'm asking too many questions.Apop bottle ,how do you do that?Do yo have to cut it a cartain way or add to it? I appreciate all of your help .I haven't had problems w/ my fishin a while,so I decided to work on the tank.OH! I found a big root ,I think, under my sword. It is kind of mushy I stuck it back under hoping it would grow.I don't know if it Is it rotting. I may take it and put it in a bucket.

I'm so under educated in the plant department. :carrot

Yea, now that my tank is cycled and my fish are happy, I'm enjoying messing with plants.

for DIY CO2, You'll need
1 2 liter coke plastic bottle
airline tubing long enough to reach from the bottle to the bottom of the tank
an airstone
1 tsp bakers yeast
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda

either drill or use a nail to burn a hole in the bottle cap that's a snug fit for the airline tubing. Stick the tubing thru it wiith about an inch inside the bottle. Then use aquarium sealant to seal both the top and bottom around the tubing. Let it dry for 24 hours.

Then fill the bottle about halfway with warm water, add your sugar, baking soda and yeast and shake till well dissolved. then fill to about 3/4 full with water. put the cap on and you're read to go. It should start making CO2 in a few hours as the yeast start chowing down on the sugar. It should last a couple of weeks.

You can calculate your CO2 levels if you know your pH and KH. From their table, it looks like 10-25ppm CO2 is a good range.

I'd recommend about 3 watts per gallon of 6500K (daylight) fluorescent lighting to get good growth, tho you could go up to 5 watts per gallon. Your goldie water from partial water change should have plenty of nutrients for good plant growth.

Thanks, that is so neat. I have everything except a bottle and the tube, which I am sure aare cheap. I just tossed a big cat litter pail and I wish I hadn't But I love the dollar store and they usually have large containers there. That is so clever.I really thank you for all of your help! :monkey :angel

HI< DataGuru, I was reading about swim bladder disease and I came upon your recipe for gel food , whic I plan to try,Peewee is either floating or sinking to the bottom .he's a year old in the same tank.The others do not do this so I assume it is SBD .I want to try your recipes but what is [ and where do I find ] lactobacilius acidophilius? I have fed him peas for three days now and his poop is a light gold, and it is floating, which made me think it is gassy. He is an odd fish , over 1 yr old and has not grown a bit as well as going from completely black to all gold .The only growth has been in his eyes.I wondered if he was not getting enough food,so I separate him at feeding time and rigged a feedig dish to the side of tank so he doesnt have to wear himself out trying to get to the bottom. Hes been eating more this way, but now he sinks down head first instead of floating. DOES IT EVER END? I know now I'm in the wrong section here .but I like your ideas, and I didnt know how else to ask you about them.

and your goldies will thank you.

I'm really liking my 55 gallon goldie tank. I got it back in December and it's evolved over time. At first the goldie geeks were trying to talk me into going bare bottom. That didn't last long cuz there just weren't enough places for biobugs to grow. So I added an UGF to one side of the tank. Then I read Diane Walstad's book Ecology of the Planted Tank. She creates an ecosystem using lots of plants and a topsoil substrate. Since I didn't feel like I could try her method with 4 goldies in a 55, as an alternative, I've been getting a couple of plants a month and potting them in a topsoil substrate with a gravel overlayer. I keep them in the grow out tub (which is now a plant filter that shares water with the goldie tank) till their roots get well established and then add them the the non-UGF side of the goldie tank.

A couple of weeks ago it was to the point that side of the tank was totally full of potted plants, so I got the bright idea of moving the UGF to the middle of the tank and making it symmetrical. It'll be Eeeeasssy. right. Well it turned into an all day affair. but I just love the result. potted plants on either side of the tank and anacharis and hornwort anchored with slate along the back of the UGF in the middle of the tank. According to Diane Walstad the topsoil should help to some degree with keeping nitrAtes at bay. Plus the plants should suck up some ammonia as well and use it for food rather that it getting turned into nitrAte by the biobugs. Also have a bunch of ramshorn snails in the tank who keep making baby snails for goldfish munchies. The plant filter is stuffed with plants from pothos and peace lillies growing emergent (with just their roots in the water) to floaters that the goldies love to eat (duckweed, salvenia and frogbit) hornwort and najas grass (which both grow like crazy) followed closely by wysteria, and sunset hygro. I actually wish my goldies would eat more plants! Cuz it'd be healthy for them and it's free food.

If your goldies keep eating your plants, the potted plants thing with a grow out tank and fast growing plants might work well. That way you could get a plant rotation going between the grow out tub and the goldie tank. Also, I'll bet you'll find some plants they won't eat. My anacharis and hornwort grow about 4 inches a week and the najas grass takes over the tank. I'll send an assortment to get you started if you want for postage.

So what do the water parameters look like in your goldie change water?

I was just reading this thread and have a question about substrate. I have been buying plants lately to keep my nitrAtes down. It is working Do you actually put potting soil in the tank??? I have been wondering when it says the plant likes a rich substrate? How does one vacumn?? I have all river rocks so I can't really bury the plants in the gravel, although I try. I have used the plastic cup tops for some - I read about it here. So how do you use substrate

Some people do use potting soil, but it can be very hard to add to an existing tank and its quite messy.

My personal favorite is the newer product, Eco Complete. Its a black substrate, and it comes in the bag in a solution. My plants love it, it doesn't make a cloudy mess when you add it to the tank and it looks great. Black substrate with a black background really makes the fish and plants stick out, plus they seem more comfortable with the darker colors.

My second choice is Flourite, but you have to rinse it really really well or the entire tank gets really cloudy when you first add it. Easiest way to rinse it in my experience is to set up a bucket in the tub or out in the yard with water flowing into it from the tap or hose. Put a few handfuls of flourite in the bucket and swirl it around, letting the water over flow and carry the dust away. Then put it in another bucket and repeat with the remaining Flourite. One warning though, small hard, sharp chunks of clay under your fingernails are extremely painful...

Laterite is good, but its kind of hard to add to an existing tank. That is normally put on the bottom of the tank in a thin layer, then the gravel put on top of it.

Otherwise, depending on your plants, you can use root tabs (Flourish brand) and normal gravel. That is especially good for heavy root feeders like crypts or swords, you just tuck them in the gravel (or in your case river rocks) per the directions (its something like one per every 6 square inches or something like that). Or you can always pot them in those little plastic pots or regular old terra cotta pots (they do make little ones) full of some sort of plant substrate. Just make sure you don't use any that have been exposed to any pesticides or anything.

For vaccuuming, most people just treat it like they would any gravel (excluding the potting soil). Where plants are dense, we just try to get any surface gunk, the roots move things around enough that you don't have to worry about anaerobic pockets. But where there are places without heavy plant growth, I just dig in the vaccuum like I normally would. With some substrates you have to watch at first if your suction is too high or it may clog up the tube, but its just a case of not picking up too much gravel at once.

What plants do you have? If you are using plants that are generally floating/stem plants like anacharis, hornwort, hygro, anubias, java fern, java moss, etc they get most of their nutrients from the water instead of through roots. In that case a decent fertilizer and decent lighting is probably all you may need. Flourish makes a good fertilizer, and its commonly found at stores. Just be careful not to overdose if you use it, algae is more than happy to use whatever the plants don't.

Thanks for that wonderful info. I have anacharis, java fern, and just got some anubias and I think hornwort :crp So far I have just anchored them to rocks but they tend to get away! Oh and i have a large sword that is getting brown algae on it. It has a lot of roots and is tied to a rock. I got some Plant Gro sticks by Nutrafin yesterday at the suggestion of the lfs.

Okay those are great plants. Don't bury the "root" of the anubias or java fern, it needs to be out of the substrate. They will send out "feelers" that will grab on to things. In the mean time, weighing them down or tying them with fishing line or cotton thread is the best way to secure them.

Hornwort and those kinds of plants can be very frustrating to keep rooted sometimes, but they do just as good of a job floating, if you like the look The sword will definatly appreciate the root feedings but they also like more light, so if your lighting is on the weak side it just might not make it.

I pot up my rooted plants in clay pots with a couple of inches of topsoil in the bottom of the pot and then cover that with an inch of gravel. The sword would really like that.

Everything else you mentioned oughta do fine in goldie water without additional ferts.

Forget rooting hornwort. it won't root. I tie my hornwort to slate and bury that in the gravel and have the same trouble you're having. It wants to float!

I have some anubias potted with the rhyzome above the gravel and am watching those to see how they do since most people do just tie them to something. I'm told they get enough of a root system to do well in a soil substrate. Suppose we'll see. I agree with Myaj on the java ferns, they do well tied to stuff.

What kind of lighting do you have over your tank? How many watts per gallon of what color temp? Does the tank get any sunlight?

Swords need medium to high light levels and if you have stock lighting over your tank, that may not cut it for swords.

You guys are so great! I'm afraid I don't know what the light is but it is fluoresent! It looks nice and bright on my 55 gal. The one on my 10 gal looks very yellow. Anyway the only plant that didn't make it so far is a watersprite a few weeks ago. It didn't last more than a week.

It may say on the bulb what it is.

I'll bet you'll need to stick with low light plants unless you beef up your lighting, as the stock lighting isn't usually powerful enough. A cheap way to add more light is to put the tank by a window. I have my tropical tanks by a south window and they're getting direct sunlight these days. The plants are growing like crazy.