Plants natural for Cichlids

[lee914]

Can anybody give me some help on what type of plants are common to Cichlids such as Oscars, Green Terrors, Pike Cichlids, Convicts, Firemouth and Jack Dempsy, besides Amazon Sword.

[PumaWard]

Most those guys will rip up plants, the convicts will probably munch on them. Most of those species are big on digging up the gravel too, so they'd uproot almost any plant.

As far as what is natural, I can only tell you about the Oscar, GT, and the pikes, almost any plant from the amazon region. Anacharis would be a good bet to see if they'll bother the plants, it's fairly cheap and easy to find.

[lee914]

So, with fake plants which types are common to the region of fish mentioned?

[yhbae]

Would either java moss or java fern attached to stones work? Since they don't root into substrate, it should survive in these environment?

[Rhys]

How bout you look at doing an elaborate rock design tank with your cilchid. You know like awsome forms of rocks cos look really good.

[jeffro426]

Originally posted by yhbae
Would either java moss or java fern attached to stones work? Since they don't root into substrate, it should survive in these environment?
Java moss and fern have both been pretty much shreded in my tank by my mbuna...Anything with broad leaves or somethign that can be picked apart easily will be lunch for them. The java fern lasted a while till they started to nibble at it, then the nibbles turn to chunks missing and now all i have are the stems left. The moss they just tear little peices off as its pretty delicate. They pull peices off and play with it and then lose interest and it ends up clogging up my filter. My best success has been with anarchis and hornwort. The anarchis is pretty durable and the leaves dont come off easily on healthy plants...they must be tough also cuz i see them play with them all the time and still no nibble marks. The hornwort ive never seen them touch.

[TKOS]

My friends convicts demolish any plant excpet for his sword for some reason. Of course the sword spends a lot of time floating.

He tried a floating lily pad plant that I had bought and they ate it in less than a day.

I second using rocks. Even fake plants will get knocked over and it will be a constant battle.

[yhbae]

There goes my plan for using java fern... :D

[wayne]

You'd be better off asking the plant people which plants are native to S America (Oscar ,Pike, GT) or Central America (Firemouth , Cons). I have a suspicion there aren't really many plants in these fishes natural waters though

[yhbae]

Thanks... I'll look into it further...

For now, my next tank will be Lake Tang species tank so I believe java ferns will be ok in that environment...

[lee914]

hey! i thought wayne was talking to me(didn't i post this thread?)

[yhbae]

Could be - sorry if that was the case... I did have the same question in my mind as you did... :D

[lee914]

No problem about that, I was just thrown off!:)