I want to have an african cichlid tank with plants (I know they rip them appart) I was just wondering how to do my substrate so that plants can grow well.
Plants in Sand??
- Thread starter bbboys
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Ive been looking around at fish and am trying to find some that dont destroy the plants like cyps. But what do you reccommend?
Don't Ciclaid tanks only have rocks as decoration just for this fact? Even in nature there are really no plants to speak of, this is an observation of a video I saw on Malawi fish.
If your dead set on Africans, plan on getting some smaller species like the 'shellies' (Don't know the scientific name, but the little guys that live in shells) or Kribensis, my Krib leaves my plants alone, although he is alone at the moment in a community African tank(Seng. Poly's and Knifes) and young, he has never touched any of the plants in my tank...My 13" Pleco on the other hand, that's another story!
If your dead set on Africans, plan on getting some smaller species like the 'shellies' (Don't know the scientific name, but the little guys that live in shells) or Kribensis, my Krib leaves my plants alone, although he is alone at the moment in a community African tank(Seng. Poly's and Knifes) and young, he has never touched any of the plants in my tank...My 13" Pleco on the other hand, that's another story!
You can definitely keep plants in an african cichlid tank. Probably the easiest plants to keep would be:
Java fern
Anubias
many have had luck with Echinodorus tenellus, java moss, amazon swords, crypts valisneria and varieties of potamogeton.
Cichlids are notorious for moving substrate so you will find that some plants that are hard to root in the substrate will be constantly moved depending on the type of plants and the particular cichlids you have you may have better luck.
Plants like HC are not going to work ever, africans move around the substrate way too much and you will have a floating carpet rather than a carpet You can however wedge anubias in between rocks or attach them to driftwood along with java ferns quite easily and I have had great luck with E. tenellus. I imagine many floating plants would work as well.
In my current tank I have Vals, Anubias, java moss, java fern, potamogeton, amazon swords, Echinodorus tenellus without issue. Although the mbuna seem to like to tear up the java moss a bit so I do find it in my filter intake quite often.
Java fern
Anubias
many have had luck with Echinodorus tenellus, java moss, amazon swords, crypts valisneria and varieties of potamogeton.
Cichlids are notorious for moving substrate so you will find that some plants that are hard to root in the substrate will be constantly moved depending on the type of plants and the particular cichlids you have you may have better luck.
Plants like HC are not going to work ever, africans move around the substrate way too much and you will have a floating carpet rather than a carpet You can however wedge anubias in between rocks or attach them to driftwood along with java ferns quite easily and I have had great luck with E. tenellus. I imagine many floating plants would work as well.
In my current tank I have Vals, Anubias, java moss, java fern, potamogeton, amazon swords, Echinodorus tenellus without issue. Although the mbuna seem to like to tear up the java moss a bit so I do find it in my filter intake quite often.