Goldfish in a Planted Tank

[billydreamer]

Right now, I have common goldfish (read his harrowing tale here: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f70/the-highlander-100778.html)

he's now living in a 2 gal fishbowl with a filter/bubbler. I'm ready to move him into a bigger tank, which he definitely needs. I'm thinking something not terribly big, but something that will give him some swimming around room, maybe around 10-15gal (he's still pretty small.)

Anyway, I've been looking through the forum for a while, and I like the look of the natural, planted tanks. Now, I don't really know much about planted tanks, but I do know that my fishy likes to eat. He ate all the leaves off of a cheapo Petco plant with little leaves. Can I avoid this with bigger leaved plants? My problem is that I really like the look of HC (Hemianthus Callitrichoides.) Will he eat this? I really like the look of the lawn of little leaves, but I'm not going to try if he's going to nibble it all up. If so, is there something else I could plant in there that would give a similar effect?

[HooKooDooKu]

With the exception of a list of a few "Gold Fish Proof" plants it's sort of going to depend upon your goldfish. Some will eat more plants than others.

The main "safe" plants include thicker leave plants like anubias or plants that just feel nice in a fish's mouth like hornwort.

Some web sites claim water sprite, water wisteria and vallisneria are goldfish safe. From my personal experience, I can agree with wisteria, but I couldn't get my fish to leave the wisteria alone, and he had munch fests on my vallisneria.

I recently tried introducing some ludwigia, and so far he has mostly left it alone.

[jsoong]

That is a wild type common, & it is going to be a plant eater ....

Most people don't have luck with commons & plants unless you have a pond & grow lilies & the like.

You can pretty much forget about anything delicate like HC. In addition to eating the plants, the fish is likely to dig as well, so any finicky rooted plants are out.

I would suggest starting with Java ferns & anubias. You can tie the plants to a rock or driftwood until they are well rooted to the object. That would eliminate one source of plant death (digging & uprooting). Both have tough leaves that goldfish will leave alone <hopefully>.

You might have luck with very fast growing plants. Eg. If you have a carpet of Vals, the fish might not be able to eat it faster than the plants can grow. With the goldfish mowing the vals down to size, you might have the carpeted look you wanted.

Other fast growers that you can try would be green hygro, hornwort & anachris. Although you will need a pretty big tank to have enough plants growing fast enough that the goldfish can't finish them off.

I have had good luck with crypts planted under river rocks (so they don't get uprooted.) However, I have fancies, and they are not nearly as voracious plant eaters as the commons.

It is fun to try different plants with the goldfish & see what works. However, don't expect an Amano tank with goldfish around.

[HooKooDooKu]

SO FAR, I've done ok with shrimp in the tank with my common. I can only guess that it might be because they are fast little buggers, and when we first introduced them, they were too big to fit in his mouth..

Now that he's getting bigger, I've trying to provide some spots the shrimp can hide and be safe from the goldie. It won't be too long before he could take one of the shrimp with one gulp. When we get to that stage, I'm not sure what is going to happen.

I'm also waiting to see how MTS fair in the tank. Larger ones are doing just fine. I've seen the goldie take one in his mouth whole... but when he realised it was just a hard shell, he spit it out not knowing about the juicey morsle at the other side. They have started to have babies, but the question is can the small ones stay hidden long enough to become too big to eat.

As for the valisnera, I had about two dozen individual spriral val, and the gold fish had no problem cutting them all down to size with just no time to grow back.