Some Advice would help

[TrishK]

Hi Everyone!! I'm Trish. I am still somewhat new to this hobby. I have had my BEAUTIFUL comet goldfish for 3 years now. They started as little 20 cent fish that I got for my daughter's 5th birthday. I did my research after the fact and realized that I needed to do better than the tiny little tank I had for them. I currently have them in a 75 gallon with 2 common plecos and a deal with my LFS for when my plecos outgrow this tank. They are thriving. I am pretty proud honestly. This brings me to my question. I still have the smaller tanks that I have moved my fish out of as they have grown, and I am developing MTS. I am thinking about guppies in my 29 gallon, and a betta with a few acceptable tank mates in my 10 gallon. My youngest daughter has a severe shellfish allergy and I can't bring any tank cleaners in with shells. I know that there are smaller tank cleaners, but I am in the middle of the New Mexico desert with not really a great fish selection, so places around here don't really have available the species I would need. Online fish are EXPENSIVE to ship. I will figure that part out, however, I know that these smaller tanks that I want to set up thrive better with live plants. This is where I get stuck. PLANTS HATE ME. I have killed some of the most difficult to kill plants pretty quickly. My cactus only lasted 72 hours. My friend gave me silk plants for my house and those wilted. No joke. I killed fake plants. This has made me super nervous about trying live plants in my aquariums. Can I still have happy, healthy, thriving fish with fake plants in my tanks? I know my goldfish are doing great, but I worry about the more tropical fish. Any help I could get would be appreciated.

[Yanni]

I think that your fish should be fine without the live plants. You can always try things like java fern or anubias but if they end up dying somehow, the fish wouldn't mind fake plants as long as you are keeping up with the water changes. I would try getting some plants from aquarium coop and maybe some fish from Aqua huna

[Isaac M]

Hi @TrishK, yes, fish will do great with fake plants. I had fake plants for many years as I did not know how to grow aquatic plants. However, you will have to maintain the aquarium more frequently with water changes as you do not have plants in there taking nitrogen out of the water. Like @Yanni mentioned, you could try some easier to grow plants just to give it a try. To add to the list, you could try growing crypt wendtii with root tabs. You could try growing a stem plant like pogostemon stellatus octopus with easy green. There are plants that grow from bulbs like the dwarf aquarium lilly or plants like aponogeton ulvaceus or boivinianus. 

There are also some really nice tanks out there with only hardscape (rocks and wood). There are many options.

The most important is that you enjoy your aquariums. You will take care of them better if you truly enjoy them. And it sounds like you do already so I am confident you are on the right track! 

[Fish Folk]

3 hours ago, TrishK said:

My youngest daughter has a severe shellfish allergy and I can't bring any tank cleaners in with shells. I know that there are smaller tank cleaners, but I am in the middle of the New Mexico desert with not really a great fish selection, so places around here don't really have available the species I would need.

I have some ideas to share, but this situation with shellfish is a new one for me to think through. I'm really ignorant . . . but would appreciate learning. Do I assume that you're concerned about bringing any snails into the home because of this severe allergy? What exactly triggers the allergy? Is it physical contact and ingestion? Just trying to get my bearings with the issue. If you must absolutely maintain a 100% snail free environment, I think you'll have to forego live plants indeed altogether. But if it's a matter of minimizing risk, there's other possible ways to go about it. Anyway, whatever you can teach, I'd like to learn!

[lefty o]

many a fish has thrived in tanks with plastic plants.

[anewbie]

If you want to mail order fishes one place that has relatively cheap shipping is aquahuna. Aquarium coop has a 5% off coupon on their page. I believe their shipping is $12 flat regardless of number of fishes you order.  As for fake vs real plants. A lot of people use fake plants but i recommend live plants. If you want to give live plants a shot one thing would be to understand what type of water you have and what sort of lighting. There are these cheap flood lights you can use - they are a little ugly but they cost only $20 on amazon and work fairly well. Then if your water isn't too hard you could try some pso and frogbit. Another hardy plant is jungle val - anyway a bit depends on if your water is hard or soft. If you water is well water in new mexico it might have a lot of salt or mineral which would indeed make it more difficult to grow plants.

[KaitieG]

11 hours ago, TrishK said:

This is where I get stuck. PLANTS HATE ME. I have killed some of the most difficult to kill plants pretty quickly. My cactus only lasted 72 hours. My friend gave me silk plants for my house and those wilted. No joke. I killed fake plants. This has made me super nervous about trying live plants in my aquariums. Can I still have happy, healthy, thriving fish with fake plants in my tanks? I know my goldfish are doing great, but I worry about the more tropical fish. Any help I could get would be appreciated.

I think your tank plans sound like a lot of fun!  As for aquarium plants, I would say my aquarium plants look about 90% better than my houseplants 🙂  I'm not the greenest thumb with houseplants either!  There are a couple advantages to aquarium plants--you don't have to water them, and at least for slow growers, the fish automatically add most of the fertilizer! 

That said, I believe that you CAN have a healthy tank without plants!  Like others have mentioned, it'll just take more frequent water changes.  
 

One other idea to try is that you can grow many kinds of plants immersed in your tank--where the roots are in the tank but the plant itself is in the air.  Some good candidates are pothos and peace/Easter lilies which you can get pretty cheaply at many stores, or with pothos, you can usually get someone to just give you a cutting from it and it'll grow that way.  They're pretty good at drawing nitrogen out of the water, and they're cheap and readily available in case you don't have much luck the first time 🙂   

[Fish Folk]

If I remember correctly... NONE  of the tanks in the Wessel Fish House have live plants. That’s 90 tanks... average size 100 gal+ ... IMHO one of the “seven wonders of the aquarist world”...