Plants for goldfish?

[Piroko]

I just got a bigger tank for my goldies and I'm thinking about putting real plants in instead of the plastic ones I've had until now. Any ideas on which plants would grow OK and not get totally eaten by the fish, or should I just stick with the fake plants? The bottom has a thin layer of river rocks and a couple of big rocks.

[shev]

goldfish love to munch on plants or at least rip them out of the ground. what are the light conditions? types of anubias and java fern seem to be ok with most plant eating fish. and they have low-light requirements.

[Piroko]

Thanks. The tank isn't near a window, but it has 2 fluoresent (sp?) tubes in the hood. I think they're 18 watt tubes. Does that count as low-light? I have the lights on 8 hours a day, is that about right?

[shev]

In order to grow plants the bulbs can't be standard fluorescent bulbs that come in the hood. they have to be plant growth bulbs, with a spectrum of anywhere between 5k - 10k. anything on the lower end of the spectrum will be yellowish, while higher up on the spectrum are white. two 18 inch 15 WAtt plant growth bulbs are pretty cheap. they usually wont tell the spectrum on small bulbs like that, but they will say " plant growth" on them. are they 18 watt 15 inch bulbs, or 15 watt 18 inch bulbs, 15 inch bulbs are slightly more for some reason. but still 2 would be 10$ on ebay or something.

oh i forgot to ask, how big of a tank? low light plants need about 2 wpg (watts per gallon)

anubias are heavy on their root systems, and grow slowly. so they need less light, not sure how well they'd do without a sand substrate or gravel. but java fern dont need a good sbstrate, they will attach themselves to objects like driftwood.

instead of plants the goldfish wont eat you could pick some fast growing plants like hornwort, which will float at the top, or you can wedg them into the rocks, they dont need much light, and grow quickly.

[rubysoho]

low light plants can be grown under stock lighting. Just don't expect a lot. The bulbs in the fish isle of Walmart are neat and fast growing. I think Your goldfish would do well with Amazon Swords, java ferns, java moss, and any low light plant that has tougher leaves.

[Piroko]

The tank is 37 gallons and sorry, I made a mistake on the lights, they're 20 watts each and 24" long. So it sounds like there's probably not enough light. I'll take a look at the special plant lights. Thanks for all the suggestions.