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If at 1st you don't succeed, try again, Plants in Lake Tanganyika tanks


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Hello Everyone,

As a complete plant newbie I tried growing plants last year with very little success. I want to try and give it another chance. I just completed another plant order from the CoOp.  This time I'm going to try only Java fern and Anubis. I plan on trying 1 Java Fern and 1 Anubis in the 125 Tropheus/ Petro tank, I dont expect it to go very well. I also plan on planting the 75 gal Juli, Leleupi, Daffodil tank. The 40 gal Ocellatus Gold tank and the 40 gal Multi tank. I had put some of the Easy Planters in my cart, but I removed the Easy Planters and decided to try super glue due to cost constraints. This might have been a mistake, we shall see. I welcome everyone to follow along and I will document this journey, both good and bad to try and grow live plants in my Lake Tanganyika tanks...20200801_215342.jpg.85eb6953a1c75b54524ab28bd5c10c8e.jpg20200912_214622.jpg.e0ed88f586e4ccf38cd0ded5f5f0eaa7.jpg

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It's doable, you might find benefit in getting the plants to attach to rocks in another tank before putting them in the petro tank. I'm guessing the petros will be like tropheus and want to pull any algae off the plants which can pull them off the decoration if not well established. 

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4 minutes ago, Cory said:

It's doable, you might find benefit in getting the plants to attach to rocks in another tank before putting them in the petro tank. I'm guessing the petros will be like tropheus and want to pull any algae off the plants which can pull them off the decoration if not well established. 

Cory in the 125 Tropheus/Petro tank I planned on leaving the plant in their pot and anchored them with rock to see if the fish will leave them alone. If the fish leave the plants alone I will glue them, and try to make them permanent in the tank.

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Today is Wednesday 11/4/20, the plant order from Aquarium CoOP has arrived to the midwest.  I placed the order Sunday morning 11/1.  The plants are in different packaging than my last order and I really feel the new packaging is a great improvement. The plants arrived in excellent condition. I have Lake Tanganyika tanks and fish with hard water and ph running 8.0- 8.8 Both my GH & KH are 300+ The 75 gallon tank has Julis,  Leleupi, Daffodil, synodontis petricola, and a Burundi frontosa. The 90 gallon have Tropheus Ikola. The 40 gallon has Gold Ocellatus. The 125 has Tropheus, Julis, Petrochromis, Petricola and a single calvus and Leleupi. I decided for the time being to leave the plants in the rock wool and pot. This will allow me to be able to remove the plants easily if the fish just start trashing the plants.

This is my own undertaking and I have not ask for or receive anything special from the CoOP. So enough of my chatter. Bellow you will see in the excellent shape the plants arrived in and the placement within the 3 tanks.

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I wish you luck in your plant endeavors! But I do suspect your tropheus may find your plants too tasty to resist.

An LFS that keeps many lake Tang fish has several set ups in his store that contain duckweed, crypts, moss (I think christmas) and java ferns. In those tanks he keeps various shellies,  juliis and brichardi. Those fish seems to do just fine with those plants and let them be. And he breeds those fish in his store in those set ups. I asked him how he got that to work, and he said these smaller species really aren't all that plant destructive. Its the large lake Tang species and the Lake Malawi species (mbuna) that will raze your plants. He said he just made sure the plants were in first and established - particular the crypts because they take a bit to establish good roots, and then he just let them go. He figures if they do eat plants, they go after the duckweed first because its bite size.

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2 minutes ago, xufan02 said:

I'm adding plants to my tanganyikan tanks as well. Starting with some anubias and java fern. I think the easy planters are the way to go. I will be buying more to add to my 75, 125, and 180 gallon in the near future. The fish don't bother them and it gives the tank a pop of color.

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Looking good...

I have found that the large Tropheus in my 125 are leaving the anubias alone. The Petrochromis discovered the anubias in their new tank and started shredding the leaves so I had to move it to the 75 gallon tank. Yesterday I started gluing some anubias and Java Fern to rocks in the 75 gallon.

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