My sister wants to house vieltail goldfish in a 55 gallon tank. But she also wants to heavily decorate the aquarium. I tell her, if you want to heavily decorate your aquarium, community is the way to go, NOT goldfish. Am I right?

She can heavily decorate her aquarium with drift wood and rock, and 2 plants that gold fish tend to not eat are Java Fern and Anubias. Both of these should be anchored to drift wood or rock, as they don't do well planted unless you keep the rhizome above the substrate - and, this solves the problem of having the fish up root the plants.

Your sister can make a really pretty tank with lots of Java Ferns and Anubias anchored all over wood and rock, and even have a few lightly planted in the gravel. She could try some floating Hornwort if she wanted to. Some goldies may nibble at it, but it grows fast and should be able to keep up.

There are a few different types of Java Ferns: The most common one is just Java Fern, then there is Lace Java Fern, Needle Leaf Java Fern and Narrow Leaf Java Fern.

There are a few different types of Anubias as well: Anubias Nana, Anubias Nana Petite (seriously tiny and adorable!), and... well here's a link... scroll down and there's a loong list of Anubias species to choose from - Anubias - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So, a 55g full of rocks, wood and many different types of Java Ferns and Anubia species would look really cool!

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While a 55 gallon community tank is a great way to go about for an aquarium, housing 1 -2 (maybe 3 with good filtration) goldfish, can and will look absolutely beautiful. It all depends on what your sister wants.

If she wants a goldfish tank let her get a goldfish tank. It is all opinion when it comes to favorite types of fish and/or what you want to get (to a point, obviously you can't have certain types of fish together and you need to have an aquarium with enough space).

For example I am not a huge fan of plecos. Most of the members here tend to really like plecos, even in some attempts to convince me that plecos are amazing, I still didn't see the light. I am a fan of smaller schooling/shoaling fish (wcm, tetras, rasboras, etc . . . ). If I had a 55 gallon tank I would probably fill it with large groups of schooling fish. Is that the right way to do it for everyone, no, but it is for me.

Let your sister do what she wants, she will be happy with the result she gets.

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Alright thanks guys. Yeah she really likes the goldfish, but really really wants to aquascape the tank. She was thinking of single bamboo sticks in the gravel throughout the tank, running the hieght of the aquarium, and some kinda floating grass type plant on the top. She saw something like that on youtube, somebody with a beta fish had their setup like that, it looked like an underwater forest.

Goldfish will eat alot of plants or the aquarium with the exception of what Alasse mentioned.I think a 55 goldfish tank would be awesome!

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"Come to the dark side....we have cookies...and filters/heaters/and water changes!"

Lol, I am Holly, not Alasse, hahahah, silly lady.

But yeah, a Fantail in a 55g would look great. Since one goldie needs 30g's and every other goldie after that needs an extra 10g's, she could maybe put 2 in there, but should still have double the filtration in her tank any way, no matter how many, since they are messy fish.

Bamboo tends to rot if you have it too deep in the water. And like Bev said, goldies will eat most plants, except for the 3 I mentioned.

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I have a 55 gal with four Goldie's and it is perfect. I do have double the filtration nd do lots of water changes, but it is perfect for them. I have lots of java fern, which reproduces quickly without any help so it quickly decorates the tank. My fish love their decorations.i have a roman style bridge that thy love to sleep under. Yes, they sleep. I have a Buddha in one tank who's upwards outstretched hand is a platform for one of my fish, I catch him sleeping on it every day. He alo loves to force himself in between branches of one of my plants to sleep there. It is adorable. I think decorations are good for goodies because it slows the current in the water, and when you have double filtration, the current is usually too strong for goldies, who like slow moving water. They can't sleep if thy are being forced around. Just don't let her get sharp objects or fake plants because goldfish are clumsy and can be easily pushed into them, which can lead to an infection you don't want to deal with.

^ your tank sounds really nice! Since 20g is the minimum for 1 goldie, I'd recommend someone new to fish (the OP's sister for instance) to not put more than 4 goldies in a 55gallon as that is the minimum size for that many golds.

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yeah it definitely takes more knowledge and responsibility to take care of it. for a beginner probably two in a 55g would be good.