Silk plants for gouramis

hi! I have a sunset thick lip gourami in my tank and I was just wondering if I stuck some silk plants to the top of the tank would it make her feel more secure? I've read that they like to hide in the plants but I don't want a planted tank at all. Would the silk plants be a good alternative?

 

Silk plants would be just fine! You can always float anacharis or water sprite. They really really don't require much and are such easy plants to keep. My gouramis love hanging out beneath my water sprite. Even my yellow guppy loves resting in between the leaves!

 

Yeah I'm not worried about the difficulty but my mom thinks live plants cause algae and it's not really worth it to argue with her about that lol.

 

That's not true at all. You can get algae in your tank without plants.

 

^^^ this -

Lol! I have more algae in my artificial tank than I do any planted one.

 

I might be wrong but I think you'd be more likely to have algae if you don't have plants, because there would be excess nutrients in the water. If you have strong lighting and a lot of nutrients, you'll probably end up with algae. Plants that are growing well can out compete algae for those nutrients.

 

Plants actually help reduce algae, not the other way around! Live plants compete with algae for nutrients.

EDIT: ninja'd

 

To answer your question, silk plants would be fine. Alison

 

I've thought about plants but it's not really worth the argument for me. I have a couple marimos in there as of right now.

I have some of the betta bulb plants (not really sure what kind they are) sprouting I might toss them in there once they get a little bigger

 

Over feed you fish and leave the lights on for more than8 hours a day. That will prove to your mother that live plants don't cause algae. Good luck with you mother.

 

She's actually really helpful with the tank it's just some stuff she's outdated on. She actually gave me the tank and showed me how to set it up lol.

 

Sounds like a great mom! You can both learn from each other.

 

It's true I'm slowly trying to teach her about the nitrogen cycle and all of that. It's most of the reason I want to do a fish less cycle on my 10G just to show her you can. The only other problem we have is she thinks water changes hurt fish but I told her they don't and I'm gonna do them anyways lol

 

Haha I've got to tell you my mom just came in my room and said "I have to admit you're tank is really nice and if you want to move it into the living room..." But now she's talking about getting her old 55G from my brother and putting it in there

 

Wouldn't that be neat. You two can do it together. Alison

 

Oh I don't think she would want to be too heavily involved, it's why she gave the tank to my brother in the first place lol, she got tired of the upkeep. But I'd totally be willing to do it, I was thinking of stealing it from my brother anyways he has it sitting with just enough water to cover his rocks. He already has the filters and everything so that's not something I'd have to worry about lol.
Technically he also has decor but I don't like his lol. I'd re-do the whole thing.

 

If the filters have been dry for a while or the tank has been sitting without fish, you'll probably need to re-cycle. You could borrow some media from your established tank to speed up the process, though!

 

Yeah I would want to change our his filter media anyways because I have no idea how he took care of his fish lol. Better to restart than start with something gross in there. I have extra media that I could switch out but I wouldn't have to buy another filter thank god!