# Live plants in Mbuna tank.



## rich_t (Nov 26, 2009)

Do any of you have any experience with live plants in an Mbuna tank?

I prefer the look of real plants vs. fake. I know that the fish may eat them, but replacing plants has never bothered me if they get shredded to the point that they become an eye sore to look at.

I am wondering what type of live plants might work well in an Mbuna tank. I'm open to looking into floating and "potted" plants.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Experiences vary, there are people on the forum whose mbuna just occasionally nibble and there are people like me whose mbuna mow down everything.

You are likely to have best success with java fern and anubias.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I find a wide range in what happens to my plants. It is not a cut and dried thing as some fish of the same type seem to have a gene for tearing things up, while others leave it alone. Small fish tend to ignore the plants, larger are more trouble. I had a 20 gallon grow out tank for fish and starting plants. I now find it handy as a rehab. for plants that have been beat up. I leave them in plastic cups and rotate them in and out of my larger tanks. I have small rocks on top to hold them and stop digging but then I have to place the pots behind things to hide the pot. Sometimes they are broken and torn beyond recovery! Plants with small leaves seem to suffer more than others with my fish. Val seems to work okay but look for one that does not grow too tall for your tank. Clipping them is not a good option.


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## rich_t (Nov 26, 2009)

Thanks for the input.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

PfunMo said:


> I had a 20 gallon grow out tank for fish and starting plants. I now find it handy as a rehab. for plants that have been beat up. I leave them in plastic cups and rotate them in and out of my larger tanks. Sometimes they are broken and torn beyond recovery!.


I do this too.


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## Nodalizer (Nov 7, 2011)

IMO anything you add anything to a tank is first concidered food by the fish and they decide after testing wether it is indeed food or just something else.

If you add plants to a immature tank with smaller fish, chances are they will leave the plants alone for the most part grow up with them and all will be fine as long as they are rooted well. If a planted is added or pulled up later down the track the fish might feel the need to retest if its food or not and you might have problems then. Mostly well fed fish from small don't do much to plants that are rooted well like the java fern and anubias mentioned above.

If on the other hand you add them to tanks with large mature fish in them, they will eat them right off and may or may not decide they liked the taste/feel and may or may not continue to eat them.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Sounds like a reasonable idea. I had not thought of it in that way but it does fit other things I've seen fish do. That is often seen when fishing. No way that fish knows he wants a wooden plug with hooks sticking out but he has to try it just on the odd chance it is good to eat. Makes sense that if he has grown up and tried the plant when he was too small to tear it out, he may not try when older. 
Maybe a definite change in my methods is needed. I have tried a single plants to see what the fish do with it. Perhaps I would have better results if I added six of one type at once and they could try one or two but leave the rest??? Humm...


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## Nodalizer (Nov 7, 2011)

Expanding on what I said, I will tell you what I found funny in my tank.

I had an algae bloom in my tank due to a nitrate explotion from a 46cm sailfin death going unnoticed by me for a couple of days. Anyway, I got new bulbs and refit my tank with some yellows and a krib pair and some plants. I was looking forward to trying this setup as with my big sailfin nothing much survived that was green.

Now I had all these fish in there for ages, and they NEVER touched the brown algae and as much as i removed it it came back just as bad even with the new high light conditions and low nitrate and plants.

So I bought a BN pleco. He was going great guns cleaning up the algae and I was happy. But I noticed a funny thing, the female krib would just sit there watching what the BN was doing, did this for days. Then all of a sudden I had the krib feeding on algae all day long. Then her mate started.

Anyway a long story shorter, All the yellow labs, kribs and BN all feed on algae all day long now. Each one just watched for a time first and then seeing the other doing it decided to give it a try. So I have an aquarium based cichlid now feeding on algae all day like its a wild one LOL

My problem now is the feeding of them, I am unsure if I should feed less eheheh.

Guess what I am saying is .. it can only take one fish to spark off a tank wide change in behaviour. So lets say you have your plants and mbuna living in piece and 2 months later you add a fish that find them yummy, don't be surprised if the others start giving the plants a go too 

Some dither fish I have found have made my mbunas eat plants in the past, also some catfish who love plants I have found have tought my other fish to eat plants even thou in the past they would never touch them.

Just a bit of my experiences hehe


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I have a feeling you and I may spend too much time watching our fish and learning way too much. I'm having a hard time filtering all this info I'm seeing! :lol:

The longer I watch the more confused I get. We all know that we have to keep new fry away from adult fish or they will be eaten, right? Due to lack of space, I have left a group of holding females (4 of 7) and one adult males Hap Ahli (Sciaenochromis fryeri ) in a 75 gallon tank. No where to put the fry so they are on their own. I did double up on the rocks for cover. Now I have tiny new fry feeding along the bottom out in the open and nobody touches them! As far as I can tell the adults have sworn off eating for now. The male spends most of his time in "his" corner breeding females and the rest live in peace! Fortunately I have plenty of females but unfortunately no space for more fry!


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## Nodalizer (Nov 7, 2011)

hehe, yes I think we do lol


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## jowideb (Oct 21, 2011)

@ Nodalizer and PfunMo : I have enjoyed what you both have written very much. Is`nt that something.
At the moment I have only yellow Labs in my tanks and lots of javafern. They do nibble a bit on the plants but not by much. So my javafern keeps on expanding. Almost half of there diet consists of peas. Could that be of influence leaving my plants alone?

Gr. John.


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## Nodalizer (Nov 7, 2011)

I would say so, the more you take care of there plant diet the less they are scouting for a means of forfilling that part of there diet. I mean they will nibble, mine nibble at anything I put in the tank, its just the nature of fish.

In saying all of that I have had plants in a mbuna tank for 4 years once and I took one big feature plant out to put in another tank and they hammered the rest of the plants. Something in them musta snapped and they decided if they can't have the plants noone would hehe

Anyway I learnt from that now and try to make plants in mbuna tanks not such a "feature" in the tank so they don't notice my removing one or two here and there.


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## rich_t (Nov 26, 2009)

Nodalizer said:


> I would say so, the more you take care of there plant diet the less they are scouting for a means of forfilling that part of there diet. I mean they will nibble, mine nibble at anything I put in the tank, its just the nature of fish.
> 
> In saying all of that I have had plants in a mbuna tank for 4 years once and I took one big feature plant out to put in another tank and they hammered the rest of the plants. Something in them musta snapped and they decided if they can't have the plants noone would hehe
> 
> Anyway I learnt from that now and try to make plants in mbuna tanks not such a "feature" in the tank so they don't notice my removing one or two here and there.


Interesting idea.

My tap water is nitrate high and I'm hoping that some live plants will help with that issue.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I'm now holding a 125 gallon that has all African cichlids but a real mix from tiny mbuna fry to some real horse sized Protomelas. Things one should not house together? When I started adding plants it was touch and go whether they were torn up or not. Mostly breaking them off was the problem but pulling leaves also. I would set plants in and then when they were in bad shape, set others in but then I needed to clear a tank of plants and just decided to stuff all the excess into the 125. Now I have a full house of plants and would not want more but the fish only pluck a few leaves off a few plants so that the plants survive without being replaced. A bit odd and uneven as they tend to pluck one side bare and leave the other side but healthy and growing. Maybe this is a case of going all-in rather than a few at a time????

I think in future my plan will be to collect enough plants in a safe tank until I can almost cover the large tank I might want to plant. Spread the fish/plant agression around as we might fish/ to fish agression?


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## proskier101 (Jan 1, 2012)

I have a 125 with 20ish Dems, 5 yellow labs, 2 flavus, and 4 red jewels.

I have 2 valicinaria(spl) )jundle val in petsmart.
1 hornwart that broke into 2 that is just floating around. (they like to hang out in this)

so far they have only went after the val's roots if they get uprooted, but I planed them away from the ocks so they dont dig near them.


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