Reply To: My Setup…

I have all kinds of plants in my tank:

I have some floating plants with long feathery roots which I bought so that fry would have somewhere to hide from their parents. This was unnecessary because I’ve never seen the parents chase the fry, and even when the parents do get near the fry, the fry don’t actually use the plant to hide in – unlike their parents, the fry don’t want to stick too close to plants.

I have some tall leafy plants that I thought the fry might use, again to hide in. Again, they don’t seem to try to “stick close” to the plants and I think this was unnecessary.

I have a low bushy plant. The adults LOVE this because they hide behind it and I never see them except at feeding time. I think that -anything- you put in the tank that they can hide behind is probably something the adults will like (bogwood, plant vase, etc.). As far as I know, it probably doesn’t actually help breeding except that fish that can hide might be less stressed and breed better.

On the surface, I have both a kind of grass I bought in a wire mesh from my LFS, as well as lots of Java Moss. The adults have a definite preference for spawning over the Java Moss, and I’ve rarely seen then spawn over the grass.

My recommendations for an ideal tank therefore would be: lots of java moss, and maybe one taller plant, or large object for the adults to hide behind.