# sand planted goldfish tank



## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

So now I have removed the soil and flourite and sand and switched it for 3 inches of plain white pool filter sand. Goldfish produced too much waste for a substrate which I could not vacuum vigorously.


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## Sharpchick (Feb 17, 2013)

I love that look.

But Gypsy and Blondie would just total it.

How big is the tank? Is that a moor at the top of the frame?


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

Who (what) are Gypsy and Blondie? 

It's a 48x18x24 80 gallon with a 30 gallon sump.

Yep. He's a 6.5 inch three year old moor.


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

So here's where I'm at. I am beginning to get a handle on planted tanks and looking to improve on a couple of things this time around. First, I'm trying a substrate which can take a beating, be cleaned to the bottom if need be (to deal with the poo surplus) and last forever. I know that the plants won't grow in as fast as with dirt, but a few members have assured me that the plain PFS will work well and won't stop the plants from growing well, maybe just slow them down, mostly in the first month or two. I may not even need to use root tabs. 

The other thing I am planning is to try to plant with a kind of scaped look.
"Kind of" meaning a mix between a jungly scape and a naturalistic look. I don't like an overly designed, calculated, perfect look. People don't seem to think that goldfish suit scapes very well, but I bet they can be put together fairly well. Eating plants hasn't been an issue so far since they only seem to eat certain stem plants and I prefer rosettes and epiphites anyway. 

I plan to leave the front and side edges bare sand and densely plant tons of large Anubias and java ferns throughout the middle speckled with a healthy amount of nice lookin crypts such as "Lucens", building this middle part up a bit higher. Finally, I may border it with some kind of vals. Probably Italian. I wish I could use some "Vesuvius", which I think are super cool looking but don't think they would compliment the other plants. It will be based on anubias, which are my favorite plants.


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

By the way. The barebottom didn't work. root feeders are not happy with their roots hangin in the waves. They need to be buried.


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

A six foot by 20 inch by 24 inch tank is 150 gallons.
A six foot by 20 inch by 20 inch tank is 125 gallons.
A five foot by 20 by 24 inch tank is 125 gallons.


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## Sharpchick (Feb 17, 2013)

Gold Finger said:


> Who (what) are Gypsy and Blondie?
> 
> It's a 48x18x24 80 gallon with a 30 gallon sump.
> 
> Yep. He's a 6.5 inch three year old moor.


My ryukins, who are master and mistress at uprooting plants and carrying them around their tank.


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## Sharpchick (Feb 17, 2013)

Gold Finger said:


> So here's where I'm at. I am beginning to get a handle on planted tanks and looking to improve on a couple of things this time around. First, I'm trying a substrate which can take a beating, be cleaned to the bottom if need be (to deal with the poo surplus) and last forever. I know that the plants won't grow in as fast as with dirt, but a few members have assured me that the plain PFS will work well and won't stop the plants from growing well, maybe just slow them down, mostly in the first month or two. I may not even need to use root tabs.
> 
> The other thing I am planning is to try to plant with a kind of scaped look.
> "Kind of" meaning a mix between a jungly scape and a naturalistic look. I don't like an overly designed, calculated, perfect look. People don't seem to think that goldfish suit scapes very well, but I bet they can be put together fairly well. Eating plants hasn't been an issue so far since they only seem to eat certain stem plants and I prefer rosettes and epiphites anyway.
> ...


When you say "plant anubias and java ferns," are you going to plant them in the sand, or tie them off to something - a rock or piece of driftwood? The rhizome on those plants doesn't take kindly to being planted, and unless there are really long roots already, it's easy for the fish to uproot them.

My goldfish tank has mostly anubias and java ferns. I bought a java fern mat, where the roots were already grown into the mat, and weighted that down on top of the substrate (I'm using gravel), so the roots could continue growing down, but I don't have to worry about burying the tiny little rhizome.

The anubias are tied off to driftwood.

Anything I plant directly in the substrate, I have to protect with some sort of barrier that makes it hard for the fish to get at it. I planted the only crypt to date (a retrospiralis) in a small clay pot, and after it got finished with the melting, it came back nicely. They don't seem to bother the crypt, but again, it's real hard for them to get at it.

I'll be very interested in seeing your aquascape on this tank.


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

I was speaking loosely when I said "_Plant_ anubias and Java". They will be tied to stuff. Although I have never had much of a problem with uprooting I realize that it is a potential problem with the crypts. I don't want to come home to find em all floating around the tank. Especially since it could easily melt them. maybe I should consider changing them for something which roots more firmly or has a bigger root ball.


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## Sharpchick (Feb 17, 2013)

Gold Finger said:


> I was speaking loosely when I said "_Plant_ anubias and Java". They will be tied to stuff. Although I have never had much of a problem with uprooting I realize that it is a potential problem with the crypts. I don't want to come home to find em all floating around the tank. Especially since it could easily melt them. maybe I should consider changing them for something which roots more firmly or has a bigger root ball.


I'd give the crypts a try. If you have some decent sized river stones (too heavy for the fish to move), you can play with making a rock barrier around the crypts and still have space to move one when you need to replace root tabs.

There are quite a few very easy and attractive crypts. I've never tried vals because just about all the goldfish owners I've chatted with have said the fish mowed those down overnight.

Love my fish, but hate seeing destruction of plants.


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

Thanks. You have really zeroed in on my potential issues quickly. I won't even try the vals then. There are few plants they eat so I shouldn't have much trouble finding a substitute. As for the crypts, I would really hate to give them up. They are key to achieving the look I want. Do you really think they would be un-uprootable because of the rocks?


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## Sharpchick (Feb 17, 2013)

With crypts, you are going to separate the roots and probably get 2 for 1 before you plant. Usually the way you get crypts is in a little teeny plastic pot with that wool wrap around the roots. When you take that off, you see a tangled mass of roots. (Although I have seen one online source for plants that removes all the leaves before shipping because they say *all* crypts will melt upon replanting. I say BS to that - I've have two pots of wendtiis in my 20 long that never melted. I'd never buy from them because I'd have to wait for new growth to see if I got what I ordered.)

It will depend on size and weight of rocks, but I think it can be done, especially if you have a crypt that will get some height on it when mature and you locate it around a place where you have driftwood or rocks already. You'd really need to think it through before planting to make sure you can uncover a place as needed for root tabs. And bury those suckers deep, because they can cloud the water if you don't.

A FTS of your tank would help...


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## Sharpchick (Feb 17, 2013)

Go take a look at the rock work and plants in it on this tank.

It's not the ultimate look you want. But the stacking of river rock can protect the plant roots until they get established.


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

I have a few wentii in there. Mine didn't melt when I planted them either. Neither did my C. crisp. balensae. They are melted right now due to the barebottom phase I went through after removing the dirt substrate. I will work on getting an FTS.


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

Sharpchick said:


> Go take a look at the rock work and plants in it on this tank.
> 
> It's not the ultimate look you want. But the stacking of river rock can protect the plant roots until they get established.


It's not the look I want, but I will be building up the whole middle in a mound of rock and wood completely covered in plant mass. The wood is already in. I know bigger crypts would work but really want to use the Lucens if I can. They will be surrounded in rock at their bases. Do you think they will hold? Alterantely, do you know of anything that looks like Lucens but has a bigger root structure?


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

A decent camera has been on my shopping list for a long time.


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

Thats a shorttailed ryu in front of the bigger moor.


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

Sharpchick said:


> I've never tried vals because just about all the goldfish owners I've chatted with have said the fish mowed those down overnight.
> QUOTE]
> 
> Any suggestion for what I might substitute for the vals? I want a solid background wall of tall dark grasslike plants which will work in low tech. I would use giant hair grass, but it requires medium to high light.


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## Sharpchick (Feb 17, 2013)

Gold Finger said:


> Sharpchick said:
> 
> 
> > I've never tried vals because just about all the goldfish owners I've chatted with have said the fish mowed those down overnight.
> ...


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## Sharpchick (Feb 17, 2013)

Gold Finger said:


> It's not the look I want, but I will be building up the whole middle in a mound of rock and wood completely covered in plant mass. The wood is already in. I know bigger crypts would work but really want to use the Lucens if I can. They will be surrounded in rock at their bases. Do you think they will hold? Alterantely, do you know of anything that looks like Lucens but has a bigger root structure?


If you already doing that kind of building, so you're not gonna be out any more $$ on hardscape, I'd just go with the plant I wanted.


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## Sharpchick (Feb 17, 2013)

Gold Finger said:


> A decent camera has been on my shopping list for a long time.


I like that!

Are you trying to keep a strip of the sand bed in the foreground uncovered for feeding, etc? If not, I'd move the little plugs of what - DHG? - forward a bit.

In your final scape, how much of your footprint will be planted? I'm going for about 50% in mine - and that includes up, with the anubias on the driftwood. I think if I planted my tank intensively, I'd come home one day shortly thereafter and want to jump off the roof to see it all torn up...


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

Hah! If my ryu destroys my scape I am sending him to you! 

I saw your fish and what I think is some angustifolia in your album. I always assumed it was a root plant and am amazed to hear its a stem! I also think it's an ideal nitrate reducer but doesn't have the look I want for this idea. If you think the crypts I mentioned will stay put with some rock around them I will give them a try. As for the grassy plant I want in the back, do you know if golds eat C. Spiralis? If not, that should work.


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

Yup, the "beach" (~20% of the footprint) is for feeding and also to contrast the foliage in the middle which will be ~ 80% of the footprint including some rock and wood sticking out.


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

The little tuft of stuff you mentioned is micro sword and it is in there as a test to see if it can handle low light. They say it won't, but if it does I'll use more.


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## Sharpchick (Feb 17, 2013)

Gold Finger said:


> Hah! If my ryu destroys my scape I am sending him to you!
> 
> I saw your fish and what I think is some angustifolia in your album. I always assumed it was a root plant and am amazed to hear its a stem! I also think it's an ideal nitrate reducer but doesn't have the look I want for this idea. If you think the crypts I mentioned will stay put with some rock around them I will give them a try. As for the grassy plant I want in the back, do you know if golds eat C. Spiralis? If not, that should work.


They haven't eaten my C. retrospiralis.

Yet.:icon_eek:


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

frontal


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## Sharpchick (Feb 17, 2013)

How long have you had the larger moor? That is a seriously beautiful fish.


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## RickRS (Dec 31, 2010)

Sharpchick said:


> ... I've never tried vals because just about all the goldfish owners I've chatted with have said the fish mowed those down overnight.
> 
> Love my fish, but hate seeing destruction of plants.


It can depend on the fish, but I has grown val with my goldfish for years without problem. Goldfish will nip plants, but plant a lots, feed your fish well, and it may work out for you.

I sometimes wonder if the reason I don't have problems with my goldfish eating plants is my wife. She likes to feed the pigs, four times a day when they were small and still three times a day after 3 years. I would complain she was over feeding but she ignored me. Maybe because they were well fed they left the plants alone? All I know is my low tech setup has Amazon swords, vallisneria, hornwort, cabomba, java fern, and anubia growing while the goldfish population is quite heavy.


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## Sharpchick (Feb 17, 2013)

RickRS said:


> It can depend on the fish, but I has grown val with my goldfish for years without problem. Goldfish will nip plants, but plant a lots, feed your fish well, and it may work out for you.
> 
> I sometimes wonder if the reason I don't have problems with my goldfish eating plants is my wife. She likes to feed the pigs, four times a day when they were small and still three times a day after 3 years. I would complain she was over feeding but she ignored me. Maybe because they were well fed they left the plants alone? All I know is my low tech setup has Amazon swords, vallisneria, hornwort, cabomba, java fern, and anubia growing while the goldfish population is quite heavy.


I would agree that frequent small feedings, as well as feeding them green stuff you DO want them to eat would probably go a long way toward reducing the destruction of plants.

My work schedule keeps me away from the house for about 10-12 hours a day, and here I am a one woman show, so I don't have the option of feeding more than 2 X per day.

I do give them floating pennywort, which they attack constantly, and I can replace from other tanks. I think it cuts down on the attacks on other plants, too.


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## Mori (Jul 23, 2003)

I keep jungle vals in my sand-bottomed goldfish tank. They're the best goldfish plant I've found because they grow in a mat the fish can't uproot. Apparently they don't taste good, either. It's not an especially well-groomed look though.


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## chibikaie (Aug 2, 2012)

I think the trick with vals is to get them large enough. A friend gave me 12"+ leopard vals that are holding out; the 3" corkscrews I ordered because I liked the way they looked had to be rescued for another tank. So far my goldfish has left anything ridiculously oversized (roughly twice her size) alone. She did eat or otherwise vaporize several crypts - again, always the smaller specimens. I do farm duckweed in all of my other tanks for her, which she gets about twice a week. I can't keep up with her appetite and it hasn't done anything to mitigate the destruction.

I believe a planted goldfish tank can be achieved ... with a lot of forethought and scheming.


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

Sharpchick said:


> How long have you had the larger moor? That is a seriously beautiful fish.


He's a broad tail like they developed in the UK not an asian type and he's 3 years old and an extremely graceful swimmer for a fancy goldfish


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## Gold Finger (Oct 13, 2011)

As for eating plants, if my fish get hungry enough they will eat just about any plant. Once mine ate half a foam sponge filter. Well fed mine won't even look at most plants. They are like us. You wouldn't eat dog food... unless you had to.


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