what AQUATIC plants do your goldies love?

[Riona]

I've been away for a while :3  I was living in Colorado, but moved back to Florida to go back to school.  And while I(thankfully, it turns out!) ended up giving my fish to one of the local stores when I moved, I couldn't not keep goldfish.  I love them too much(and wish I had a higher paying job and a first floor apartment so I could have a bigger tank and more of them ) 

 

Turns out the water where I live is atrocious(2.0 ammonia out of the tap!  YIKES!) so since I don't have the money to keep the saltwater tank going, I set up my old biocube with some plants to see if I could get it down to 0 ammonia/nitrite/nitrate so I could do water changes with GOOD water.  Good news!  IT WORKS!  Sooooo, now I am left wondering what to put into the clean-water-project tank.  I figure if I do this right, I can plant fast growing stuff that they will enjoy eating.  That way it will get the water cleaner faster, grow the plants faster(since I'd be able to do more water changes, leading to dumping more ammonia for the plants to use up) and give the goldies a ton of extra food that can be left in the tank all the time(versus pellets which need to be eaten within a few minutes so they don't start to rot) 

 

Right now I've got some anacharis(supposedly one they should love, though they seem to only really enjoy it if I haven't given them pellets in a couple days ) water sprite(just got it, so I don't know if they'll enjoy it or not) and riccia(which they seem to be ignoring completely)  I also tried some Rotala rotundifolia from my planted tank, and they have been ignoring that one completely, even though the leaves are a bit soft *shrugs*  I am looking for a bunch of floating stuff(including duckweed, which I know they'll adore.)

 

I've HEARD that they should eat cabomba, aponogetons, various myriophyllums, wisteria, nymphaea(the water lily-types that are sold for tanks instead of ponds) pennywort, Heteranthera zosterifolia(pearlweed) and ambulia from looking around online. . . But I've also seen other places say that they won't touch them if they're offered, so I figured that if I'm going to go to the trouble(and expense!) of cramming my spare tank full of plants with the intent of just feeding them off when they start to overgrow it, I should make sure it's stuff they'll actually eat.

 

Any ideas on what your guys go nuts for, or what they just flat out ignore?

[Georgia]

Basically any delicate stem plants or carpeting plants are fair game to be eaten. They are fragile enough to be torn off easily. However some goldfish leave them alone anyway. I'm lucky to have my fish leave my water sprite alone. Unfortunately my one hibuna had taken a liking into my moss balls and has demolished them.

Abubias are pretty fool-proof, most goldies ignore them because they are very thick-leafed. Everything in the middle like swords, apongetons, lilies, crypts, etc can be a hit or miss in terms of goldies eating them.

[aquabubbles]

I feed my goldies duckweed by the bucketload! They love it

[Riona]

I definitely want to find duckweed.  The ones I had in CO adored it.  Guess I'll grab a good bit of anacharis and see if I can get them to eat a bit more of it.  Wish moss balls were quicker growing since I'd definitely try that if they were.

 

Thanks

[aquabubbles]

I definitely want to find duckweed.  The ones I had in CO adored it.  Guess I'll grab a good bit of anacharis and see if I can get them to eat a bit more of it.  Wish moss balls were quicker growing since I'd definitely try that if they were.

 

Thanks

 

I could send you some duckweed if you can pay shipping. It grows so fast, you really only need a tiny bit to start and within a couple weeks you'll have tons!

Edited April 4, 2015 by aquabubbles