A few weeks ago a member here (forgot who it was) recommended a seller on ebay, for anacharis. The seller is DealsByJane, and I have gotten one order of anacharis from her.
She offered them in bundles of 50 stems, but when I opened the bag there were way more than 50 in it, and to my surprise I found a few stems of cabomba!!
Now, we are not talking tiny little stems here, those things are up to 2 ft high! I had to cut them in smaller pieces to fit them into my newly planted 55 gl tank, and I have still lots of them around. They just never seemed to decrease in numbers!
I put the stems of both plant types in the fluorite/gravel mix, and to my amazement the cabomba had already sprouted new growth the next day. And so far no nibbling attempt from the goldies....

Thats a great deal. And i love anarchis. but my goldfish keep eating it, little by little. It just doesn't grow fast enough

Yin, thats why I choose to by so many of them. I planted them all along the back and sides of the tank, and 3 half blind telescopes are slower in eating than other fish. I hope those plants actually have a chance now!

Yeah, everyday, there are a few leaves missing, But i think that the plant won't die, just get bald.
i just love having plants anywhere. And Ranchugirl, do you have any bamboo in your tank? And it's lucky bamboo right? Real bamboo can't be in water. Real bamboo is like a tree. But luckbamboo will never have stems, just leaves growing out.

That was me Andrea!!!! Weren't her plants great? I swear some of them were closer to 3 ft though,and so super healthy! And the best part was that I never saw one snail!!!!! I've purchased off of her 3 times now,and She'll remain tops on my list! Oh,and just out of curiosity,I counted those 50 stems of Anacheris the last time...It turned out to be something like 116 stems instead!!!

How much light in what color spectrum do you have over the tank?
My anacharis grows about 4 inches a week with about 4 watts per gallon of 5000K and 6500K light.

I did have it potted for a while, but I had to top it off regularly and I didn't like the way it looked. So now I use one of those fat rubber bands off fresh broccoli, tie it to small pieces of slate and sink those in the gravel. Weekly, I'll pinch off the bottom and re tie the nice tops to the slate. The bottoms (depending on how long they are) get pitched in my plant filter or tied into the bunch in the tank.

oh.. and if your goldies like duckweed and frogbit as much as mine do, and you don't have any tropical tanks to put some in, it would be good to put some of both floaters in a container of goldie water by a south window.

I picked up a bunch of duckweed here while back... it totally covered the top of the 55 gallon tank and it was gone in 3 days. I'm thinking of renting them out for duckweed eradication! *laugh*

Seriously tho, I grow both duckweed and frogbit and feed my goldies some daily. They don't mess with the other plants in the tank, but they love the floaters.

Sharon, thanks for her name again! Those plants were monsters indeed. I have found a couple of really tiny snails, but they are usually not a big deal. What the PP didn't kill, the fish will most likely eat. Little pest snails never make it long with a goldfish in my tanks!
Betty, for now its 160 watts on the 55 gl, 2 bulbs with 10.500 output (if I remember right), and 2 with 6500. One of them is a specific plant light, one arctic blue, the other two are broad spectrum bulbs....
Thats basically all the space used on top of that tank, but I am considering a compact light in the near future. There isn't even a spot left to drop food in!
I have them in the gravel as well, only in two of my smaller tanks they are in pots. The betta tank also got some in the gravel, and I still have some left sitting out in the sun in a 20 gl tank. Just don't know where to put them all!

I have duckweed out in tubs in the sun, together with water hyacinth and water lettuce. Every now and then I dump a handful into the tank, and the fish love it.

Yin, I forgot....Yes, I did have the lucky bamboo for a while. It wasn't in my tanks, I put it into a small container with just water and gravel (to hold it in place) and decorated my tortoise enclosure with it. Which was a mistake!!
The tortoises are just as hungry as the goldies, and one day one of them just threw the pots over and ate my bamboo!
I didn't have a chance yet to make it to the chinese market, but I will do that today. Can't be without any lucky bamboo. I will put it into the 10 gl betta tank first, to let them grow a bit.
I just love your gigantic bamboo in the tank!

Ok, thanks for telling me that. Anyway. don't expect it to grow really fast. it grows slow, it will take at least a month to see any difference. But i love bamboo. They don't need soil. And will the snails on anarchis be a pest. I don't have any of those, but i do have the ones that look like slugs. They are like the size of a needle, width. but length, like a piece of rice. Anyway, what do you do to get rid of those?

Andrea: very cool! I need to check and see if our garden center has any hyacinth, wanna see if it'll grow in my plant filter.

Excellent lighting. Your anacharis is going to be very happy.

I'd try the bamboo if it grew faster. I'm looking for fast growing emergent plants for the plant filter to help suck up nitrAte. The pothos seems very happy and the easter lillies are happy now that they've adjusted to growing in the water instead of in dirt.

My water lettuce died.

Mine do that too at times, Betty. We have here some tiny insects that eat the lettuce from the inside out. All I see at first are tiny little bite holes on the leaves, until one day the plant pretty much widdled away. Although I am never sure if the insects did that, or if the mysteriously disappearing roots have something to do with that one! (Koi are the best in eating those roots to the ground! )

Bamboo doesn't grow fast, but it sucks up a lot-o nitrate. I think that is the reason there is no algae in my tank. Even when cycling. But ranchugirl, my anarchis is growing so fast!!! I can see it grow every day and the fish seem to be not eating as much

Hi Betty, Ranchugirl,
Just joined last night! Ran across this and had to go check out the ebay buy you mentioned. Not too bad at all really! Now what is a luck bamboo? (And maybe a pic?)

BTW Betty, meant to ask you over at KV, but what is that frilly nice tall plant in your aquarium? It looked so nice!

~Kathy

Hey Kathy! Good to see you here.

The one over on the left hand side?


That's wysteria (Hygrophila difformis).

Hi Betty,
Thanks! I stumbled into here first looking for info on the prima fix thing (KV) and then Captk gave me a poke in the ribs the other day to join! I'd been meaning to backtrack myself to here and take a better look around anyway!
Well, kv is on the fritze again, I was going to pop back to our thread there. They where more in the mid/center back area's.
This has been a good thread for me what with just planting mine. Never thought to look at ebay for plants!
I bought parrots feather and anacharis from a place called Arizona gardens this summer though for the pond, next to the ebay deal, they have good quality and prices, the only drawback there is they have a minimum purchase on stuff.

So far I have wisteria,Apons,red wendt and some swords in,and two lily bulbs. I had anacharis, but those two greedy Oranda's have eaten it all up yet again on me,lol! 6 bunch's in four weeks, it never seems to get a chance to grow any!

Any recomendations for plants?

~Kathy

my anarchis is getting chowed down even as we speak!

So do you guys feed your goldies veggies regularly?

I went and numbered the plants in the pic above.

1. wysteria
2. red melon sword behind it is an amazon sword
3. brazil sword
4. bronze wendetti
5. java fern
6. hornwort
7 jungle val



8 green hygro
9 sunset hygro
10 more java fern
11 oriental sword and a radican sword

I think I got all the swords right. I should have marked the pots rather than relying on memory! LOL

The hornwort is my fastest growing plant--about 4-5 inches per week with 4 watts per gallon. It won't root, so it's tied in bunches to pieces of slate. It's tough and may survive hungry goldies. It can be messy tho if it's not happy.

I like the sunset hygro. Like the wisteria if a piece breaks off, it roots and grows a new plant. Those and the green hygro are growing maybe 2-3 inches a week.

I love the color of the bronze wendetti. it's growing well and it's supposed to stay shorter.

Java fern is supposed to be tough, needs low light and I think most goldies don't eat it. I never see any of the little plantlets it gets on its leaves, so I'd bet those are getting eaten.

I'm not impressed with the jungle vals so far.

The swords are doing well potted in topsoil. Dunnu if they grow fast enough to keep up with goldies who are intent on eating them. The radican is putting on new leaves the fastest.

I had a great experience on aquabid. One guy from Missouri sent me
a bunch of different plants when I ordered frogbit and java fern from him and was kind enough to send me some squeezings from one of his filters.

Wow, you have a variety of plants in your tank. i love plants.

once in a while, some peas, no real leave plants or veggies

HI Betty,
Thank you! Hornwort is what I was looking at and couldn't place what it was in my mind, thought it may have been cabomba or? I like the oriental (?) sword, the one pinkish coloration.
I have some red wendt and I like it so far, its been easy to start, I bought two and now have 6 going. So I think I'll look for some bronze then to go with too. Give a bit of color variety anyway!
I just put new lights in too, wally mart plant/Aquarium lights, are these ok, or should I up the brightness. My 55 has a double hood system so it only takes the smaller length flourescents, 10 gal size hoods I think they are, about 15"/15 watt each.

I've been feeding them vegies, more variety now since I found out what they all like. They got some squash the other day,lol! I swiped some out of the vegie bag of normandy blend. *grins* Spoiled fish got a few pieces of shrimp the other day too!

~Kathy

Wow, you sure had a "salad" going there for a while, Betty!
Its a funny thing with Cabomba - the first few I got lost all their leaves and pretty much died, while the filter got clogged up with all those little fuzzy leaves. The one I got from Ebay not only stays intact, is has pretty much grown 3 inches overnight, and has now reached the water surface. Its strange why they sometimes just drop all their leaves....

My goldies have veggies in their gel food (red bell pepper, spinach, spirulina flakes), and get peas and the same spirulina flakes a few times a week.

Since all the plants in my goldie tank do so well, I am getting the urge to try some reddish plants for a color splash. The only thing that still needs to go into the tank is the java moss. Its sitting in a bucket and waiting to be moved....

Kathy: an idea what color spectrum the wally world lights are? So there's 30 watts over your 55 gallon tank?

I ended up building my own hood to get more light over my 55. It turned out heavier than I would have liked cuz I ended up using 3/4 inch plywood rather than holding out for 1/2"...

Andrea: Yea, that plant salad was a trip trying to figure out what all of it was!
My camboba did ok. I only have a few stems left tho stuffed in the plant filter.

How much light do you have over your tank?

Hi Betty,
It say's wide spectrum on the box. 18" 15 watts. I know when I put them in to replace the older ones it made a bigger difference.


Ranchugirl, I would love to get some java moss & fern! Lucky you!

~Kathy

When it warms up I could send you some java fern and misc other plants. Can't guarantee they won't have ramshorn snail eggs on them.

I like the rams tho. I've intentionally put the larger ramshorn snails in my goldie tank. The goldies can't eat the larger ones, so it's a source of free self-replicating live goldie food.

Full spectrum is good. I have one wide-spectrum grow light tube over the goldie tank. How many watts total do you have over the tank?

Betty, can you tell us how you did the light yourself? I am thinking about the same thing for my 55 gl, which holds 2 48 inch striplights right now, and the top of the tank is just so "crowded".
I am a sucker for DIY projects!

BTW, the tropicals tank, where the cabomba fell apart, has 60 watt on a 29 gl tank. The 55 with the growing cabomba has 160 watt on it, so its quite a bit more...

Yea, camboba likes lots of light. I think mine died back when I cut back on light for a while after I had pea soup algae.

I picked up a shop light and built a frame for it. Here's some pics, etc. http://www.aquamaniacs.net/forum/viewtopic...ight=shop+light
but that only got me up from 30 watts to 80 watts.

Looks like my memory isn't good on what thickness of wood I used. I think I planned it using 1/2 or 3/4 inch wood and ended up having to use 1 inch thick wood. It's too heavy, so I'd definitely recommend using thinner wood.

Since then, I'd drilled a hole on each end and used rubber grommets and the screw in light fixtures to add two compact fluorescent bulbs (one at each end) which get me 150 more watts of light. So it's up to 230 watts now... a mix of wide-spectrum grow light, 5000K and 6500K. I really like the color of the 6500K light (it's blueish) better than the 5000K (which is yellowish).

I think if I had it to do over, I'd go totally with the 6500K compact fluorescents. Figure out some way to build a frame and mount 4 of those evenly across the tank. I was a bit boggled by all the different things you could do. changing out the ballast and overdriving the bulbs; going with VHO, etc. plus I was trying to do it on the cheap.

Hi Betty,
Sorry I didn't get right back, been fighting this head cold for about two weeks now! Think its going infection though!

30 watts total on the light! I've been looking through a Dr's Foster & Smith catalog at the light's. Wondering if someone makes a double light hood, mine takes two hoods so I can't just go to a strip light set up! <_<

And yes, I'd like that! I would be willing to send you some red wendt starts off mine! I dropped a tiny piece of root into Sushi's bowl last week that I found laying in the gravel last time I cleaned and the darn thing is sprouting leaves already! It seems to divide and start easily anyway!

I won't mind the snails either,lol! I am looking into maybe getting a apple snail for algae purposes. So ramshorn would be feasable also then eh?

~Kathy

Colds suck! I guess I was too proud of not having one last winter, cuz last summer I got a nasty one. payback I think. LOL Hope you get to feelign better soon!

That is pretty low light.
My 55 originally had two of those stock plastic hoods with 1 15 watt fluorescent tube in each. One thing you could do with those is to lose the fluorescent fixtures and add compact fluorescent fixtures to each. That could get you up to 300watts.

I like the ramshorn snails. I tried to get them established for several months in the goldie tank, but they kept getting eaten! Finally added the largest rams I have and they're doing fine. They lay lots of eggs, but I never see any baby snails, so I'm assuming the goldies are eating the babies. I do worry about the adults getting enough to eat cuz the goldies don't leave anyhing but poop around. but since I feed them fresh foods, the snails are probably finishing off the undigested stuff in the poop. The rams do graze algae off my plants and they take care of old plant matter. Rams would probably do a better job with algae than apple snails... and I'd be more comfortable with them in with goldies rather than apple snails. I'd worry about the apples developing a taste for goldie slime since it'd be hard to feed them in a goldie tank. If you do get an apple snail make sure to get Pomacea bridgesii rather than a canaliculata (which loves to eat plants). Here's some good pages on how to tell the two apart.
http://www.aquamaniacs.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7105
http://www.aquamaniacs.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4582

You guys don't have much of a winter up in Oregon do ya?
Back on 9/11 I got stuck in Portland for about a week, till I could get a flight out to come home. Very nice up there.

HI Betty,
Oh yeah, last year we had over 3' of white stuff and two weeks no power! Nothing new for this area though on the power thing! One learns to keep a wood stove and cook on it,lol!
I'm about 1500-ish ft, but if they say snow to 3, we get slop!
Had about a inch a week ago, but gone by the next day. Its supposed to be a mild winter here this year though, but lots of clear/cold/freezing so far.
I have seen it snow here on the 4th of july, go figure!
I call this area the twilight zone,lol! Anyway, I'm in the lower edge of the cascades mnt. range, 55 miles east of Salem.
Small town, sneeze you miss it! If we are lucky, we see 3 month's of nice summer, but it generally never gets really warm, the vally sucks up all the heat,lol!
We also have our home on the edge of town, so we get the deer, elk, variouse visits by critters and have seen one wolf........ that was pushing it and hubby took the weatherby for a walk to make sure it left the area. My kids where younger then and that just bugged me to have that walk into the yard.

Thanks for the heads up on the snails, I'll make sure I don't get any of the wrong kind, don't want them munching the plants!

I'll look and see if I can find some of those light fixtures, I really want to solve the light set up and hve enough light to do the job. The tank will look so much better with nice plants in it! Not to mention benificial for the whole.

The selection is so poor for things in Salem, petsmart, petco, wally mart, and one small fish store I really like, Samurai Guppy. If nothing else, maybe they can get me a better hood set up, need to replace the whole anyway, the doors are broke at the hinges. Sure wish they made heavier hinges on those,lol!

This cold has been really yucky this last week, settled in my sinus, got two teeth all worked up and now my ear, all on the left side. Tolerable with ibuprofen, but if its not getting better any, then I'm going to have to go see the Dr. as its most likely turned infection. :angry: Grrrr!

~Kathy

I guess I shouldn't complain about hot Oklahoma summers! LOL
We only get about 3 months of winter here. Maybe a foot of snow some years. Usually a lot less.

I spent multiple hours looking thru hardware stores cuz I like to do things on the cheap. Well, I don't actually like to, but my 23 year old refuses to grow up and become self sufficient so cheap is essential given this hobby can be so expensive and she is too. No way was I going to spend the amount of money they want for a kick a** lighting system. DIY is kinda fun.

Wow... you have two large chain stores, three if you count wallyworld! LOL
We only have a petsmart and one marine mom and pop shop and a wally world. There's a nice garden center that has pond plants and goldies tho. OKC isn't that far and there are lots of pet stores there. The good ones are about a 40 minute drive. Makes me wanna quit my job and open a pet store. kinda. That would probably drive me nuts...people not taking good care of the beasties they take home.

Hope you get to feeling better.

Yeah, I saw what you meant by the price of some of those fixtures. I am 55 miles one way to Salem, but the selection of stuff is technically cheap,no selection, and For some reason, Salem things tend to have a gold price tag. Have never figured out why I can drive to Albany or Portland and buy things cheaper! Go figure!
There is one pond store in Salem, but my last trip in prevailed sick fish in there main, dead little one's and slovenly upkeep, so I passed on buying anything. I drove up to Sunset koi in beaverton and spent a wonderful afternoon there and bought my replacement koi there.

So I buy bulk things from foster & smith catalog for the pond, most of that covers my aquarium as well anyway! But one look at those lights had me and hubby cringing!

I have my son home as well, he's just on his feet though, he was hit while rideing a bike in Salem, broke his leg up pretty good! Steel bar and one year later!

Oregon isn't so great job wise at the moment, Kids just have the worst of it as far as jobs go. My daughter is home also, no luck with anything. But they help around the house as much as possible.

Well, i'll have to take a look and see if the stores do have any better light set ups and what they want for them. Once in awhile I find something to the good,lol!

I'd take some of your summer, it never gets wrm enough for me around here. But then I keep trying to talk my aussie friends in to that also! Send me some heat and I'll send some snow! LOL!