plants?

[debaric]

suggest for me some hardy plants I can keep with SA cichlids that are medium sized, say 5-8 inches. What kinds of plants and what kinds of SA's will work with them?

[kcooley]

most south americans like to dig...

if you have one that digs on one side of the tank you maybe able to get away with a amazon sword. it would have to be a pretty hardy one tho. anything else they will either eat, or dig up and kill.

[plah831]

how 'bout floating plants? Good ones would be anacharis, hornwort, water sprite. Those can all be planted, but if the fish uproot them, they'll grow just fine floating. What other floaters am I forgetting?

I would avoid duckweed, because I've heard it just takes over the surface of your tank.

[debaric]

do you think that taking some large rocks and covering the area of gravel where the roots are will keep an amazon sword or crypt in place? its killing me because i spent a lot of money on a lighting system and recently came to the realization that I want cichlids.

[DeRo316]

If you weigh them down that much it may work, but my oscar used to rip at the stalks eventually pulling them up. Thats why I gave up on live plants originally and got fake ones...which still got ripped up...until I added some floating fake plants and they didnt rip up a single plant after that!

So I would think your plants may be safer if you have a floating plant that they can still nip at.

[plah831]

right, and if you weigh the plants down too much, it will suffocate/crush them AND block their light.