Plants and fish

[Hevydevy]

I've got no idea whatsoever about plants and my new cichlids have destroyed a couple of my plants.

Can someone tell me what plants - foreground and background - I could get that look good and won't be eaten by my fishies?

[Lady Hobbs]

Some species make it impossible have have real plants and you have to go with the fake ones. Those are getting better and better looking and you can hardly tell they're plastic anymore.

[Glasstapper]

I'm a bit partial to the silk plants, myself. The only thing, though, is mine tend to fade a little, so I replace them once every 6 weeks or so.

Aren't most cichlids notorious for ripping up live plants?

[Fishguy2727]

It really depends on the cichlids. Big tankbusters are a no. My jaguar cichlid will rearrange them all. I had it well aquascaped when he was still in the 55. A couple weeks later he piled them all up in the middle and huddled up next to it. Sometiems it doesn't fit the biotope, like with mbunas. They are naturally in areas of almost all rock and no plants. I'm talking about live and fake here. If you want to do some plants, check out Tetra's Water Wonders plants.

[jman]

Depending upon the size and type of cichlid simply determines the affect on the live plants in the tank. If you notice even if the cichlid is small most of them get drawn to plants anyway. Big ones tend to just rearrange everything anyway like my huge red terror.