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Re: Planted Goldfish Tank



> To: <Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com> 
> From: "Tom Wood" <tomwood2 at flash_net> 
> Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 16:58:11 -0500 
> 
> I looked into stocking a planted tank with goldfish and came to the
> conclusion that it wasn't feasible for two reasons:
> 
> 1. Goldfish are considered a cold water fish. Most sources I read
> recommended a high temperature of 72 degrees, no more than 74 degrees in the
> summer, with a temperature as low as 65 degrees recommended in the winter.
> Some larger goldfish reportedly die at about 80 degrees. Most of the plants
> we keep are tropical plants, used to higher temperatures. My tank runs at
> 75 - 80 degrees, so it seemed risky to subject the fish to the high
> temperatures.

A lot of the stem plants are *not* tropical.  You ought to see what they
do when they escape into the lakes and waterways here in Minnesota!

 
> 2. Most of the sources I read recommended a pH of 7.4 or higher for
> goldfish. My tank always runs at 6.8 or so, and the plants never do well
> above 7.0. It seems that there is an inherent incompatibility between the
> needs of the fish and the best situation for the plants.

If you have plants that grow in hard water, you can have reasonable CO2
*and* moderately high pH.

> Also, goldfish are messy eaters and will contribute a lot of waste that will
> show up as N and P, which in turn must be compensated for with more lights
> (heat) and CO2 (low pH) to avert algae, which seems to me to be the setting
> for a disaster for the fish. Correct me if I am wrong, but it doesn't look
> feasible to me unless you are dealing with very low stocking levels and are
> satisfied with less than optimal plant conditions/growth.

I've had a planted goldfish tank before, overstocked actually, and it
did just fine until an unfortunate accident killed all the fish.  The
biggest problem was that the GF's like to root in the ground like pigs
and they uprooted the plants.  I had an amazon sword, jungle val,
elodea, and some cheap apon. hybrids.  Maybe some java fern, I don't
remember.  They all did pretty well, although the GF's kept the elodea
picked over.  The jungle val did the best.  I had very hard water, and
no CO2 injection at the time, and 45W of compact fluorescents on a 20
gallon tank. I did have to change the water a lot or else it turned
green.  With lower light, that would not have been a problem.  

I would try it again, cuz I like goldfish, and they are cheap, and no
heater to mess with.  I'm too lazy to deal with "optimal plant growth"
anyway.  HTH :-)

Best regards,
Bob