Shurik

Oh WOW! I am so happy to find this thread – I just set up 50 gal common gold fish tank.
Actually I don’t know exactly what they are but they are definitely not fancy at all.
Abnormalsanon, your tank looks great, I love your scape and fish.

Can you please tell me what is this light colored substrate you used to cap everything else?

I can’t find pool filter sand, the pool filter industry moved on to silica sand, I guess.

My worries are my fish constantly takes everything into their mouth and spits it out. I got eco-complete and some desert sand I just replaced and it looks lousy without the sand.
Should I cap eco-complete with some bigger size gravel so they will not choke on it? Should I not use sand at all? Is eco-complete an OK substrate to use? They've been living with it for about two month...
I got too many questions! Sorry to pop in!

 

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abnormalsanon

Thank you! Trust me, it did not look good a few months ago...it's been a long road.

I started out last July with Aquasoil covered in a layer of pea gravel in the middle "island," surrounded by regular play sand. Of course the loach and goldies tossed the stuff everywhere, so now the gravel and sand have mixed a lot, but I kind of like the look of it. The Aquasoil has remarkably stayed in place in the center under the gravel.

I think it depends on the individual fish, really. My big comet (RIP, Leroy!) loved to eat/spit out everything, but my remaining little guy doesn't do much digging/mouthing. I would probably replace the Eco Complete if you can, since it has sharp pieces in it. And of course, watch for any obstruction, and remove from their mouths carefully with tweezers if needed. I've found Eco Complete and sand to be a real mess when you have fish who like to dig. My 30 gal tropical tank has this mixture, and the corycats throw stuff around so much that I have to replace the sand every few months to keep it looking neat and clean.

If you do a search for "goldfish" on here, you'll probably find quite a few threads about planted tanks with goldies. You won't be able to get a neatly scaped and manicured tank with goldfish (at least not in my experience), but after many tries and a lot of patience, I have managed to get a decent looking setup running smoothly. The funny thing is, it's when I stopped doing any maintenance and basically gave up that the tank finally stabilized Good luck!

Oh and I should add--if you use playsand, be sure to rinse it very carefully to get rid of all the dust. Otherwise the water surface will have a gross yellow film for a week or so.

Shurik

Thank you for your reply, dear Abnormalsanon! I am so sorry you lost Leroy!
For how long did you have him?

I guess a lot of things do depend on individuality of the fish, even though it might sound strange, but two of my fishies acts like they are different species, just like you said, they are different. Hagrid is up to long distance speed swimming and he does it 24 hours a day. H.P. (Hagrid’s Pet) is constantly “gardening” and won’t quit taking care of my planting.

I definitely need to do a lot of reading and thinking, will try play sand, I know the quality and consistency of it varies in different regions and I’ll think about eco-complete. So far I had no problem with it, but it makes me very nervous. I don’t know if I can remove it, I guess I have to redo the entire tank to get rid of it.
Here is a little video of my struggle, I know one picture worth a thousand words. It comes with the sound

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ICQNdERWsA

P.S. Can someone tell me what kind of a fish I have?

dwalstad

[quote=abnormalsanon;356415] I've had a 55 gallon goldfish tank up and running for about 8 months now. This is my third (failed) attempt at planting this tank over about the past 2-3 years. No matter how heavily I plant with "easy" plants or what lighting/fertilization regimen I try, it ends up looking awful. I've got 130 watts over it for 7 hours. QUOTE]

7 hours/day is not long enough for any aquatic plant. The recommended photoperiod (i.e., daylength) for aquarium plants is 12-13 hours (Christel Kasselmann, Aquarium Plants, 2003).

In the past, I've always used 10-14 hr. Now I use 14 hr but with a 4 hr "Siesta" between noon and 4:00 PM. That way, the lights are only on 10 hours, but the effective daylength is 14 hours. Works great, so far....

jaylynne51

Shurik, thanks for the youtube! It's one of the better ones that I've seen. I'm getting ready to start a 100 gal. planted tank with ryukins(eventually) and am still in the researching stage. I'm definately going to "stay tuned."

ericpop27

I was under the impression that play sand is poisonous for a tank. I have All Purpose Sand in my tank. Cheap, available anywhere. It just has to be cleaned very thoroughly to get it looking nice and light coloured.

I love the layout of your tank! So many people say to off center things, but I prefer things to be symmetrical.

 

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