# Question for the Eartheater keeping guru's of cichlid forum



## Murky (Jun 13, 2007)

so here is my question.. could you incorporate plants into a tank with some of the 'earth eaters' if you did it like this... ( please excuse the poor image quality)










Basically you have a raised 'river bank' effect in the back with the plants up on top of that, and a nice sandy 'meadow' for the earth eaters below.. maybe you could even put a piece of driftwood down below and affix plants to it. anyone know if this would work. or if they would just get up top and make a mess of the plants


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## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

It's something I would try, but two things would help. Down below use fine sand, like 3M grade 'S' and up top use larger plant gravel like Eco-Complete. Second, make sure the entire upper level is planted with no open spots as well as giving the plants time to grow in the roots first.


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## Murky (Jun 13, 2007)

I think I'll end up giving it a shot.. and I found a 3m color quartz supplier a few days ago in Mukilteo which is a 35min drive or so from Seattle.


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## RayQ (Sep 26, 2007)

Spoken like someone who has "been there, done that" :lol:

I agree, except, I'm not sure that using different substrate will matter, they are sifters and if more than one piece will fit in the mouth, they will sift it!

It will look awesome by the draw up, and will likely be successful, just lots of work to keep the substrate on top, another idea is to plant through a fine mesh, stopping them from getting to the plants bases, might be worth a shot? Show us some pics if you get it done :thumb:

Ray


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## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Ahso, I know that place!!! :lol:


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

Hey *Murky*,

I've always wanted to try this as well. The one thing that has stopped me, is that my tanks aren't really tall, and as you can imagine there won't be a lot of room between the top of the bank and the surface of the water, and I don't know many good looking, low growing plants.

What are you planning on using as your river bank "wall"? That was the other thing I always struggled with, though I always figured what ever I used, I'd smear an aquarium safe silicone over it and cover with whatever my substrate was.


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## klumsyninja (Aug 14, 2008)

I've been wondering about the same problem.. just by watching them now (in my planted tank, lol) I can see they they will scoop it from the bank and spit it al over your sand.. I was thinking about laying eggcrate over the Ecocomplete with cut outs for the plants and then placing sand over the eggcrate or something.. Hopefully the eggcrate will at least keep the plants rooted in. I have some bug crypts and swords I want to use so it'd be pretty easy..

I hope it works out for you.

What are you going to use to create the bank?


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## Murky (Jun 13, 2007)

I haven't completely figured out what to use for the bank. I don't plan on going super high with it maybe like halfway up my 75g tank. So I am still thinking of what to use.. was thinking of embedding layers of rock in a natural way into a material of which I haven't decided upon, Perhaps styro in a ratio which would not create floating. Haven't had my tank set up in like 3 years from moving and etc. and this time around I want to take my time and get everything the way I want it and not rush into it where I have fish in the tank and then decide I want to change things.


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## klumsyninja (Aug 14, 2008)

You could probably run a strip of styro along the back like four inches out and silicone it to the floor of your tank and then just break up some slate and stick it all in and to the styro board before siliconing it in there.. I was wondering about it too actually, I want to create little planted islands in my 180 to break up lines of site from various clay pots.. but your bank idea is a really good one.. Be sure to take a bunch of pics and post a thread in the DIY forum so's we can watch

opcorn:


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## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

The reason I suggested the eco-complete is the huge size of the pieces btw. Looks horrible if exposed, but fine if completely covered with plants. Large enough mid sized geo's probably wouldn't even try to lift it. Larger ones still might, but the larger grain size (some up to 7.5cm btw) and the roots should keep it down.

The smiliar idea I had for compressiceps pikes to add caves was using foam and concrete much like alot of the DIY backgrounds, but do a lip along the shelf. Then use a high light, low growing plant with the echo complete on top ... like pygmy swords (_Echinodorus tenellus_). Of course, this idea was in a short tank ... ie 20 long or 40 breeder. The idea was to make the top look like the flooded forest floor. Since it would take silicone, and a huge amount of it, also wanted to try it on a cheap glass tank. After all, here twenty longs are only $26.99.

I think too much I think. :lol:


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## klumsyninja (Aug 14, 2008)

I have some Geo's in my planted 90 (temporarily) and they are scooping up the EcoComplete ALL DAY, lol. They range in size from a few inches to 5 inches and they are scooping it up like crazy.

I'm quite confident that they'll make a real mess of it and spread it around everywhere.. Maybe put large gravel over top of it..

I like this idea, the three of us should try it and compare.


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## illy-d (Nov 6, 2005)

I had eartheaters in a planted tank and it worked fine... I planted my crypts & swords in bunches and let them get pretty established - I also placed stones around them to protect them.

I had lots of open sand areas for them to sift and my anubias & ferns were attached to rocks and wood.

Worked great!

Oh - and a funny thing with the Vals... My initial val bunches were IMPOSSIBLE to keep planted at first - but after finally getting them established the runners they sent off did excellent and were harder to uproot than the mother plants... The sand would get sucked away from the base of the vals (because it grew out in every direction except the way I intended), but the plants would still hang in there!


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## Howler33 (Dec 10, 2004)

YOu could also go with plants like crypts, anubias and moss that only need to be secured to driftwood and not planted in a substrate. I have used Illy-d's trick of placing rocks around the base of rooted plants and it has worked fine with 6"+ eartheaters.


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## Dutch Dude (Sep 14, 2006)

At first,...a nice idea of the raising sandbank!!! Dough some things to think abouth. I kept Brasiliensis and currently have Guianacara. Both species try to adjust their environment to their own demanding. If it plant is in a place they don't want they defenately try to dig it out and get ride of it. I potted plants in the smallest size pond baskets and covered the top with larger stones,....they are stronger as one might think, put their mouth on the stone and start swimming and basically shovel it aside. They have a diferent tactic for the plants they are not able to remove,....tear apart all the new leaves so the plant will die over time or at least do poor and become smaller. So I stopped trying to keep eartheaters and plants in the same tank and added lots and lots of driftwood (also lots of caves and hidden aria's) and only add some floating plants.

For your idea of the raising sandbank,....you could glue a plain of glass and make a DIY background and front of the river bank. In stead of the glass separation between front and back you could also make a glass box so you can easy remove it if you might want to create a new aqua scape. You can make the DIY front of the sandbank out of styrofoam just like the backgrounds and paint it with Tixitrope non toxic Epoxy paint. I'm sure Kent does have a product that will be suitable. The epoxy is liquid and as easy to handle as paint. You can add diferent colors to it and paint it. When your finished painting you can add some (with the sandbank a lot) of the sand on top. This takes away the shimmering in the lights and / or give the impression it is covered in sand. The advantage of the epoxy is that it is very strong, you can make your own colors, after 2 weeks curing completely aquarium save, very strong, easy to handle,.....perfect stuff for backgrounds! So Tixotrope non toxic (water based) epoxy. It is often used for boat repairing or fixing holes in the water tanks in large ships.

If you decide to go along with plants I also suggest anubias and the idea with the egg crate. They can't dig out the egg crate and the leaves of the anubia's are to strong to rip apart.


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## Crane (Dec 19, 2008)

I've had my Gymnogeophagus in what started out as a half ecocomplete, half pool filter sand 55g for a month and they are slowly sifting the ecocomplete onto the sand and mixing it in. i think they are less vigorous diggers than Geos and they haven't uprooted anything just made a mess. My plants are doing fine but are getting nibbled a bit.


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## Reiner (Jul 17, 2002)

I have Anubias nana attached to driftwood with my breeding group of G. altifronts and I have never had any trouble with them touching the plant. I do however even out the gravel every time I do a water change just to mess with them, and the next day the whole tank looks like a moon scape again with craters and mountains of gravel all over.


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## bernreuther (Jan 29, 2007)

I had a similar idea before I set up my 110 but couldn't decide how I wanted to divide it or pot the plants, and instead of running the risk of the planted substrate ending up out in the sand, I just went with 100% sand and ended up with a new aquascaping I hadn't planned on but liked. As it turns out, they don't uproot any swords or crypts anyway. Like others, I plant them in bunches. Anubias is another story though. Those always get uprooted. I have chunks of it all stuck inside other plants around the tank. Eventually I'll superglue it to some rock. Otherwise, I'm sticking with swords and rockpiles.

I think your drawing looks great - what do you plan to use for the wall? If it's going to be super tall like in the drawing there's a decent chance they won't go up that high anyway. Mine only swim up past halfway rarely, usually only for feedings.


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## mayadbee (Jan 16, 2009)

so what if the top of the bank is covered in a ground cover type plant? I can't think of names right now. But if it gets to the point where it's all solid with plants, then maybe the fishhies can't get in there to uproot plants OR rocks.

For the bank, I like the idea of caves, and the styrofoam and epoxy idea would make it look rad. Wouldn't it be cool for the plants on top to be hanging over the lip of the bank? Don't know if that's possible, but it looks good in my mind. 

Anyway, good luck!


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## Dutch Dude (Sep 14, 2006)

I don't know the meaning of rad in your sentence. If your a bit DIY skilled you can make the sandbank look very real. Carving out the caves and create the right shape of the styrofoam is the largest part of the job.

For plants I suggest plants with strong leaves like anubia. I guess those are the largest chance for success. If you want to plant the entire "sandbank" you only need a narrow sandbank so you will have more room in front of it. The plants should create more depth.

Here a pic of one of my DIY backgrounds.








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## mayadbee (Jan 16, 2009)

rad = cool, awesome


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## Dutch Dude (Sep 14, 2006)

> rad = cool, awesome


 Aaaah OK,...thanks for explaining


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