[cichlid]

Yes, a planted cichlid tank.

I have always wanted a planted tank, the green! But my love for cichlids and there attitudes, i believed the myth for a long time that I couldnt have both, but then I read an article on it, realized it is possible and my mind was made up. It was going to happen.

Tank is a 40 gallon, with an aquaclear 110 HOB filter ( over double the filtering ) lighting was a single 18" T5 aquaglow. Very simple, very basic.

Sand substrate, and lace rock

This my original set up, before switching to lace rock.

My first attempt at

Got some plants off members,

This anubia was awesome, but for some reason it didnt last in my tank, the root system fell apart. I left the one leaf in the tank and it regrew, there is a second leaf growing so I guess it rerooted into the rocks.

 

[cichlid]

I wanted to do something different so I did Coralife 50/50 bulb. Its great, really brings out the colours in the fish!

I was at Kawkawa Lake in hope, and found a killer piece of drift wood.
It was cracked so I snapped it into two pieces. I spent a good amount of time carving away soft spots that would probably come off anyway. It spent the next 4 days in a cooler of boiling water and aquarium salt, ( i knew from brewing beer igloo coolers hold heat for hours!) the water was changed every 24 hrs. I used fishing line to tie the wood to a few pieces of rock to weight them down.

I took a suggestion from Charles to run seachem Purigen in my filter and its worth it! No tanning fromthe wood, no discoloration! The water is so clear it looks like the fish are floating in mid air.

 

[cichlid]

My first attempt at planted didn't really turn out. I have no Idea why the anubias Died in my tank, but nothing Great was ever achieved by giving up on the first failed attempt!!

So I piced up a beautiful amazon sword and Anubia berteri, ( so far so good )

Next I saw a post on here someone ( the guy ) had extra plants he was giving away, so after a trip to pick them up!

Future plans: to add a few more plants, another berteri, a nana, and another amazon sword, should be gettng some more juivies in the next coiple weeks! Im toying with the idea of a larger tank 65 tall should fit my stand, or I could build a new stand

Here are the 2 articles if people are interested, pretty cool reead, lists a bunch of ' cichlid safe ' plants!
Plants 101 - Plants and African Cichlids
Plants 102 - Plants and African Cichlids

 

[jbyoung00008]

Ive had my planted African tank setup for 4 years now. Lots of trial and error with plants.
Some pointers I can offer is some plants work for one person and not for the other. Some plants are tasty to Africans. Mbuna seemed to enjoy eating them more than the Peacocks and Haps. Your PH/KH/GH are very important for the survival of the plants. They dont like high PH and need Equilibrium added to raise GH. If you are adding lake salt or any other salt, the plants dont seem to tolerate that well. Jungle Val has been my most successful plant. It does grow in Lake Malawi so that might be why it does do so well. Good luck with your tank

 

[cichlid]

Awesome! Im not alone haha. Amazon sword has done well.

What do you use for fertilizer

 

[jbyoung00008]

I use Seachem comprehensive and trace for fertz. I also use flourish root tabs

 

[cichlid]

Yea, im sold on seachem. I do liquid flourish every water change and thats it. I did try API root tabs but honestly didnt notice a difference in the plants,

 

[KTown mbunamani]

How does it work when the mbuna like high PH and hard water? The wood will tend to soften the water, won't it? Just wondering...

 

[cichlid]

Good question.... I have not noticed the PH change. This setup is very consistent, it usually stays around 7.6

As for GH i forget what it was the other noght, I do know its fairly hard water.