Re: Goldfish resistant plants

[MJPinckard <MJPinckard at lbl_gov>]

From a variety of people who emailed me in response to my recent post about nitrates the common
opinion has been that there is a difference between the eating habits of Fancy goldfish and common
goldfish.

Fancy goldfish don't seem to cause the plant destruction that common goldfish do... my caveat to
that is that my fancy goldfish love algae (candy coating), and any plant with algae, no matter how
inedible, will take damage as they attempt to eat the algae. Once a plant is damaged or has dying
foliage they'll continue to nibble on it. But I commonly have brand new foliage, tender and
unfurling, ignored while the old algae covered leaf nearby gets torn to shreds.

In response to this, I'm actually increasing the variety and number of plants in my goldfish tank to
include types I previously avoided because I thought the goldfish would eat them... I'll let
everyone know how the experiment goes...

I do know that the following plants have worked well with my goldfish... any variety anubias, java
fern, java moss, amazon sword, crinum (before it got covered with algae) and anacharis. I've grown
Eleocharis, but they do nibble on it, so works best when it can be rotated out of the tank for a
while.

Maggie


> Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 00:55:53 EDT
> From: Armstr0ng420 at aol_com
> Subject: Re: Goldfish resistant plants
>
> Are there any other plants that goldfish won't eat? A friend of mine really
> wants a planted tank, but she keeps goldfish, I am hoping to help her out.
> Also, would a 2x55 watt CF be enough light for crypts over a standard 55 gal?
> Thanks,
> Tim
>