Planted peacock tank?

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Andrewtfw

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Dec 23, 2005
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Aside from the fact that some plants may be nibbled on or outright consumed, has anyone setup a planted tank with peacocks? I am not speaking of a cichlid tank with one or two plants. I mean a heavily planted tank. If so, what Ph are you keeping the tank at?

I know it is an unlikely possibility due to the Ph requirements of the plants vs. that of the africans, as well as the cichlid salts and the toll they may take on plants. I am just curious to see if anyone has made this scenario a reality. If so, please post pics.
 
I am working on establishing some plants in my tang tank. I am trying some abubias, java fern, and I just put in some jungle vals. I have seen some heavily planted cichlid tanks on the net, and when it is done the results are spectacular. Good luck.
 
ive kept anubis and java fern with hap type africans without any real problems. i prefer the anubis though.

the big problem with haps and plants is the substrate. if you use anubis attached to rock, problem solved.

anubis dont require much light and thrive in hard water. i keep anubis under standard florescent lights in a 29 and under a shop lamp in a 55. both tanks give steady growth.

the haps tend to leave them alone unless they are realy hungry. Mbuna tend to chomp them up IME.

of course the disclaimer is that this is just my experiance and yours may be different. i would try one plant for a month or two before loading up.

good luck!
 
I've had mild success....
They (the fish) eventually chew them up. The plants lasted for a few months but as the fish grew so did there curiosity. I think the fish got borred and had destroyed them for the heck of it.
 
I have a 29gal tank wlth baby ob peacocks in it the tank is not heavliy planted yet but they nibble a little in also have a couple of yo yo loaches in there too.
 
I've had heavily planted cichlid tanks for years. The plants I've used are jungle vals, regular vals, corkscrew vals, cryptocorynes (mostly barteri and affinis), anubias, java moss, and java fern. Biggest issues I've had with plants is most often the digging; if you can design your tank so that the plants are protected or digging isn't going to be an issue, you plants should be fine. I've never used anything 'special' for my plants besides some extra lighting in my 125/135 gallon tanks, and have them all with just silica sand right now. I've kept everything from WC mbuna, haps, and peacocks in my planted tanks. Peacocks shouldn't touch the plants at all; if they are, they're most likely picking things off of the plants and not eating the plants themselves.

I think the trick is to have the tank heavily planted all at once, and have enough lighting so that the fish are both overwhelmed with the number of plants that they can't pick on them all at once and yet there's enough light that the plants continue to grow regardlesss.
 
I had one with about 20 growing strong plants. Mostly swords and java ferns. Well I put in peacocks and a few mbuna... Obviously the mbuna were the biggest culprits. Anyways it looked really good for a good 6 months, then things just went down hill. I still have a few of the plants living but they have been moved after looking near dead for months.

The biggest problem was they would uproot them, or just rip off a whole leaf and leave it. If I was willing to buy new plants every 6 months I would definitely keep it up. But well I don't have the money for that.
 
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