Jake’s Planted Aquarium Pages

Some fish just don’t like to play nice with plants, plain and simple. There are many species of cichilds, like African cichlids, that will tear up a planted tank in a day. Goldfish are another as are silver dollars. Some fish are primarily herbivores and would see a planted tank as one big salad bar. Other fish are just plain too bulky or bulldozing, or they like to rearrange your tank after you spent all that time getting the plant placement just how you want it. Some cichlids also like to dig, and are the dogs digging in the garden of your planted tank.

Oscars are great for rearranging their “furniture”, which is anything in the tank that’s not bolted down. Some pleco species are good at this as well. Most of your larger fishes, including adult sized clown loaches and such, just don’t know their own size and will zip through the plants pulling them out without a second thought.

 If you don’t know what’s good and what’s bad for a planted tank, it never hurts to ask or to do research online before purchasing the fish. Good fish include fish such as : German and bolivian rams, any tetra/rasbora/etc., danios, siamese algae eaters, bristlenose ( or bushynose as they are also called) plecos, otocinclus, and the list goes on and on. There are many more fish that prefer a planted tank and will live in harmony than won’t, but unfortunately they sell both at pet stores and many times they don’t know the difference themselves.