silver dollars & plants

[noop]

any recommendations for a newbie? (other than plastic )

 

[AquaNut]

Hey there. I keep silver dollars in a heavily planted tank. They definitely chow down on a lot of plant life, but fortunately the plants grow faster than they get eaten and I'm still winning the battle at this point. They really munch the Amazon swords and valisneria to smithereens. They're also pretty fond of rotala. Don't even attempt to keep cabomba with silver dollars - it's nothing more than a pricey snack, gone within a day or so. The plants they seem to leave alone are microsorium (java fern) and cardamine lyrata. They're not too hard on the anubias, either. If you've got well established plants and good growing conditions, you can stay ahead of the dollars, but if you're trying to get little tiny plants established in a tank with them, it's going to be a struggle. Feed them lots of spirulina flakes and/or wafers, as well as a variety of fresh vegetables; this helps.

 

[Lateral Line]

It's guess work because I've not kept SD's, but most veggie oriented barbs etc., don't eat Anubias sp. or Crypts.

 

[CFC]

The trouble is that SD's being characins have teeth set into the front of their jaw which enables them to nibble even the toughest plants. Try java fern which most plant eaters seem to avoid, and giant vallis which is about as inedible as a plant can get. The plants sold as onion bulbs are also inedible but a very large deep tank is needed for these as they grow to over 40" in height!

 

[cory]

My silvers have never left any plant alone except the onion bulb that has been mentioned, and since I'm not fond of it's looks, I ended up going with artificial plants.


My SD's weren't so much eating the plants, as they were attacking them at various times throughout the day. I hear that the smaller the tank, the harder it is to mix SD's with live plants.


Good luck with whatever you decide.

 

[AquaNut]

giant vallis which is about as inedible as a plant can get

Tell that to MY silver dollars - they always have at least one giant val mowed down to a stub!

 

[CFC]

Is it real GIANT vallis? The normal variety is like a salad bar to herbivors but the giant variety which has leaves over 1" wide and grows to about 4ft in length is very fiberous and even my severums tinfoil barbs and buttikofferi left it alone apart from the occasional nibble.

 

[AquaNut]

I'm pretty sure it is Giant Val; it was sold as "Jungle Val" which, I'm told, is another name for Giant. I have corkscrew val and regular val and both are miniatures compared to this stuff. Its leaves are indeed about an inch wide and I have to cut off 18" or so every time I prune the tank; it winds all around the top of the tank and gets tangled up in the cardamine. The regular and corkscrew vals wouldn't last 30 seconds in that tank.

 

[mark_b]

It seems to me that everyones silver dollars have different tastes! I agree with aquanut though about cabomba!Mine eat the green stuff insanely quickly!Mine wont even touch swords though which seems to be unusual.If i have lettuce in the tank though they ignore the plants completely which is handy!My 4 SD's all about 1 1/2 " each go through a whole lettuce each week!
Try feeding them shelled cockles aswell - it really fills them up and if just one gets it it keeps hold of it and all the others chase it round which is funny to watch.

 

[silver]

I've heard that Silvers are suppose to just "LOVE" Romane Lettuce, but mine WILL NOT TOUCH the stuff, wierd?!! But they do LOVE their shelled peas.


Silver

 

[Tempestuousfury]

Yup. The comment about the romaine lettuce is absolutely correct. Once I started adding it to my tank, the dollars stopped eating the plants in my tank.

 

[CFC]

My 6 SD's go nuts for rommain lettuce and spinach, so far they havent bothered the giant vallis but theyve only been in the tank 6 days so time will tell.

 

[Lateral Line]

Do SD's produce as much excrement as Plecs when they are on these plant filled diets?

 

[silver]

You know, this might seem wierd, but I've NEVER seen my Silver's go - well - to the John ) . NEVER!! I've seen all my other fish of course, they do it all darn day long, well not really But not the Silver's, so I don't know how much waste they really create?!!?

CFC,
I didn't know you kept Silvers )


Silver