My 200 Gal tank, add plants? wood? keep as is

by **infin** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 10:49 pm

Im starting up a Cichlid tank and just put in 300lbs of rock. Bottom is white sand. Just wondering keep it how it is, or add something else. Will have more fish very soon.

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/5595/img5200.jpg

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/2604/img5199fnh.jpg

by **dizzcat** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 10:52 pm

Very nice!

Are you going for African Cichlids? If so, plants will get eaten :-) Also, real wood will lower the pH.

I like to add some fake plants to my African tank to add that extra color. I don't care so much for the all rock look so I will put in some fake long grass type. You can see what I mean in my profile.

by **Burgerking7679** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 12:34 am

Looks great. Dizz is right(like usual), real plants will get eaten by the herbivorous Cichlids plus they lower the ph like the wood. I think some tall leafy green plants would look nice, but its your tank and already looks fantastic.

by **zambize** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 4:24 am

The tank is beautiful. I think some greenery would be nice though. I use some fake plants that I think look real nice. I can point you to them if you're interested. I'm all into "natural" looking tanks and won't use any fake plants that look cheap, mine look pretty good. Also, it takes a *lot* of driftwood to actually lower the pH, and I mean a *lot*, so if you wanted to add some accent driftwood I think it would look nice and would not lower your pH. I have super high pH (8.0) and I've done many an experiment with driftwood. I finally gave up trying to lower my pH with it because it just wasn't effective enough.

Zambize

by **infin** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 9:03 pm

zambize, what plants do you have that look real? i hate fake plants that look fake.

by **zambize** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 4:57 am

Here are a couple that I use that I think look good in the tank:

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/p ... atid=19001 (the Hygrophilia specifically)

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/p ... atid=12124 (the Bamboo specifically, I'd like to try the Asparagus Fern)

And I didn't say that they look "real", I said that they look "nice". lol I've tried many fake plants and these are a couple that I've used in several tanks. For fake plants, I think they're quite decent. You can't tell much from the pictures, they look different in the water. If you see any others on this site that you're interested in (they have good prices), let me know, I've tried many of them.

Z

My 200 Gal tank, add plants? wood? keep as is

6 posts