Green things and Silver Dollars

[new_tank_which_fish]

Hello all, I am a complete newbie to plants.

I am planning to move my Silver Dollars from a 75 gallon to a roomy 125 gallon.

I would love to have a good chunk of the tank be a dense vallisneria forest, but I do know that Silver Dollars are notorious plant eaters.

 

What would everybody recommend to plant the tank with that has the best chance of surviving?   Big patches of moss maybe?  Or a lucky bamboo forest?

Whichever plants have the best chance, I'm planning to let the planted tank go wild and overgrown for up to a year before I introduce the mowers.

[Tanked]

I recommend  plastic.  My SDs eat everything.  I hope someone has some good suggestions.

[Rube_Goldfish]

I've heard of using tough-leafed plants like anubias with fish like mbuna or goldfish (MD Fish Tanks did it with his mbuna tank: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUANv2E7tuI), but you'd have to go into it being okay with the potential loss, I guess. I wonder if you could put tough epiphytes in the tank and then 'distract' the silver dollars with duckweed and guppy grass?

[Odd Duck]

Lucky bamboo is holding up well to my silver dollars.  Everything else, well, I’ve got a large, well established Amazon sword that is now floating as of yesterday.  It was in a pot with very large pebbles / small stones heaped around the base in a 2” layer.  They’ve been this way for months and months.  They’ve mowed down the swords in the pot on the left side of the tank, but recently decided to rip this one right out of the pot.  It still has some viable roots so I’ll be replanting tomorrow and see how it goes.  🤷🏻‍♀️ Even the Jack Dempseys (who I designed the tank around) haven’t ripped out the swords completely like this after they were rooted.  Or shorn them down to nubs.

The tank still has lots of emerse plants mostly growing from the sponge packed HOB’s.

[MrWestCoast]

Nothing, I repeat, nothing will survive Silver dollars. Not even plastic plants.  When algae starts growing on plastic plants, SDs will nibble on it and you'll have tiny bits of plastic floating in your aquarium. I have tried all of the suggested plants like anubias, amazon swords, african onion plant. Nope! demolished within hours of planting.

I did notice that my spotted SDs don't care for plants or veggies. My regular SDs destroy everything 🙂