Plants and Cichlids???

M

mregan24

AC Members
Jan 12, 2011
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Berrien Springs, MI
Hi everyone. I am getting overwhelmed and need your help.

I really want to set up a 36 gallon corner tank with cichlids and plants. I dont need the whole tank to be planted, but would like a few plants. Is this going to be a problem? Ive read that cichlids eat plant material and can uproot plants. Im thinking of Mbuna's. Can anyone recommend some low light plants that would work in a cichlid tank?
Thanks for the help.
Mike
 
They need to be plants that will grow fast and don't need to stay rooted to keep up with the fish uprooting and chewing on them. I have very good luck with Hygro polysperma.
 
Alot of cichlids do well with plants. African riverine cichlids, angelfish, discus, SA dwarfs all are great with plants. I have never had mbuna, but from my reading here and elsewhere you could have a hard time keeping them rooted and mbuna are a mostly herbivorous group so you could end up with alot of good "salad" for them.
 
msjinkzd said:
which cichlids do you want to keep?
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+1

And what plants?



As an example; I have a Buffalo Head, German Blue Ram, and a pair of Kribensis. Nobody touches the Anubias or Java Fern (two very common low-light plants). Every once and a while the Kribs peck at the Ferns but I think they may be going for algae on the leaves since there is no damage. Wisteria seems to get ignored also. The Kribs are the only ones who even touch plants, and the only one they seem to bother is a new type that I have no idea what it is. They nibble some of the new growth off occasionally. Not enough to outright destroy the plant, but definitely keeping it from growing much at all (and making identifying it rather difficult).

It depends on what cichlids you are considering and what plants. Personality is another possible factor but that is rather difficult to plan for.
 
mregan24 said:
Im thinking of Mbuna's.
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Sounds like mbunas are the cichlid of choice. Most all of them love veggies, pretty good sized, and love to uproot. Hygro is one of the few plants that does very well planted or floating, I don't think it tastes particularly good since mine don't eat too much of it, and it grows really fast. There are a few other kinds, but either way, it will be pretty much impossible to have a nice planted tank with mbunas.
 
I've got some tanks with mbuna that do fine with plants, others will eat java fern and anubias barteri to the root. Same species of fish but the difference is the ones that don't bother the plants as much get plenty of veggy matter in their diet including spiralina flake and tablets. I would really only recommend anubias species and java fern. Probably what you will want is a big pile of rocks in the middle of the tank with java fern and anubias stuck in the cracks. The plants will take root to the rocks. Anything else is going to be lunch for mbuna. Both do fine in low light but will grow faster with medium light.
 
^ I tried java fern and anubias in my mbuna tank and they shredded them. Lately I've had a lot of luck with Vals. Yes they get eaten but they seem to grow fast enough to stay alive. Duckweed and water lettuce seem to do well also. It all depends on the individual tank.
 
I forgot about vals. Good news is they like crushed coral as a substrate. I grow tons of vals in my pond in the summer in tubs of crushed coral so they will work well with africans.
 
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