I haven't finished decorating it yet.This tank will soon be an all male tank as soon as I get another tank for my females

I love it Cathy!!!! Are all your plants real or do you mix them up with fake ones?

Thanks Selena
I have two fake plants at the back.Other than that all plants are real But I already took them out coz my husband wants all real plants.
I'm having a hard time decorating it and I have not been successful with other plants that I got before.They die within 48 hours :(Any suggestions of hardy plants I can put in there?

hi! Your tank is lovely! I've had problems with real plants too, They either die or get devoured. Anacharis is pretty hard to kill, at least in my tank, they ate all of it. I have a tiny tiny piece that has been floating and eaten, then grown back a few times, and I have old lighting. I have also had luck with a sword plant, Its broad leaves make it hard to eat, and it is still alive[ although I had to tie a falsie to it to confuse my babies. Good luck.!

Looks great!!! you done a really nice job on it

here is the plants i have in my tank - they all seem to do pretty welll and the fish dont eat them anymore.

#1 Hygrophila polysperma

#2 (Broadleaf Amazonian Sword) Echinodorus bleheri

#3 Anubias barteri var. angustifolia (''afzelii'')

#4 Alternanthera reineckii ''lilacina'' ('Purple')

#5 Echinodorus parviflorus 'Tropica'

#6 Egeria densa

#7 Cabomba caroliniana

#8 Ludwigia repens

#9 Cryptocoryne x willisii

#10 Echinodorus cordifolius 'Tropica Marble Queen'

#11 Vallisneria

#12 Dracaena Sanderiana

What substrate are you using?
How much of what kind of light?

Very beautiful tank, well decorated .
Hmmm i see sand thats not so good for the goldies

Thanks everyone for the compliments and suggestions



I changed the light when my plants started dying.I now use 2 32 watts light that our lfs said is good for planth growth.



The gravel according to our lfs is especially made for goldies.How come you think it's not good?

I forgot to add that the light is on for 10 hours daily

Nice setup. Look very natural to me.

You have a very beautiful tank!

Cathy,
Nice tank setup. You have nice substrate too but need time to maintain them. What kind of substrate are you using? Looks like fine sand? Are you using an undergravel filter. Good to have one though to keep the substrate areated and clean. For plants, Java fern is the best I think but not sure whether they survive colder weather like in Japan. In tropical country like Malaysia, most plants can live quite long with little maintenance. You will need quite a fair bit of light to keep your plants "green". If you like your plants to grow very well, you might need to add CO2 but will reduce your PH due to carbonic acid formation.
Not sure whether this is good for gf.

Cheers.............

Thanks every one for the nice compliments

Yes it is sand that I am using because our lfs said it's good for goldies and for live plants.I do not have an under gravel filter and it takes a lot of time to vacuum
Do you think I should take it out and change it?

very well decorated tank and nice looking fish, too!

Cathy, I think it is better to have an undergravel filter since the substrate is sand. It will cleanup the water better as the sand bed can be a big biological filter and your water chemistry will be more stable. My tank is bare bottom and all the bio load is on the filter. If anything goes wrong with the filter, the cycle will crash. I am still struggling to cyle back my tank as I have replace the media with a good quality Japanese media to cultivate more bacteria growth. I think my filter had crashed again after I move the bio balls during the change. They are very sensitive.

Since you do not mind spending sometime vacumming the gravel, it is make the tank look very nice.

Cheers..............

Sorry to hear about your filter crashing again

Will it be okay not to get an under gravel filter or will it harm my fish if I don't?

Don't worry if you do not have an undergravel filter so long you have a good filter in the tank. However, you have to clean up the gravel frequently to remove the gf poops as they produce a lot of poops.

If you do not remove the poops, bad bacteria will emerge and might cause the fish to get sick. I have little experience with substrate but I did tried once and it was quite dirty. Anyhow you can give it a try for sometime to see the effect. If it is difficult to maintain, you can remove later or add a undregravel filter.
Cheers........

as far as plants go, I would recommend java fern and/or amazon swords, as I've had great luck with these. Java fern seems to never get eaten by the goldies. My swords lasted a really long time, until spawning season came around this year, at which point they shredded the leaves off of nearly all of them. There were bits of leaves all over the tank and clogging both the filter intakes! I swear they did all the damage in two days. At any rate, the java ferns made it through all the damage, and they didn't seem to take one bite of those. Also, Javan Ferns don't require alot of light, so you don't need to worry about that as much either.

I have 2 cannister filters running and I think they're doing a fine job.So I'll just leave it as it is for the moment
Thanks ranchu man


My fish are constantly spawning too and they have ruined most of my plants that is why I am getting a new tank to separate the males and females.I will try to look for jave fern and amazon sword at our lfs.Thanks tweedlebugpicnic

lovely tank c u, 2 cannicters is ample, clean them alternatively. the problem i have with undergravel filters is the layer of bacteria where your fish like to serch for food, even when i was using a ugf i still vacuumed the floor ,
i would go for java fern the goldys tend to leave it alone as it has mild toxins in it, i found giant vallis does well

Thanks padda's pal

Cathy, your tank is awesome! Your fish are beautiful.

I can't give you any suggestions. My goldies eat everything. I stopped trying to have live plants because it's too expensive. I'm no good with them. My goldies ate two amazon sword plants down to nothing. I just use silk from now on. Your are so beautiful.

Thank you Queenie
So far those plants are doing good.My fish don't eat them but they pull them off the gravel sometimes Naughty little fishies

I agree with the Java Fern, you could get some plain, and some lace for contrast there. I have Bolbitus in my tank also, but that can be a bit touchy depending the ph & lighting. Some of those lily bulbs would do well too for a bit of color!

I went to useing those candle votives for the one's the fish seem to pull up, weight them down with larger stones you can get in the craft dept. Hehe! Foiled them up from the rooting! :0

Lovely tank!

Thanks Kathy for the tips.
I re-arranged the tank again and took out some plants.The leaves just keep falling off At the moment,I have anacharis,java moss,java fern and 2 other plants I have no idea what
I like the sound of lily bulbs but what kind of plant is it?