# Large fish in a planted aquarium?



## nel (Jan 23, 2016)

Ropefish :-D


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## bigbadjon (Aug 6, 2015)

How big are you talking? If you mean 5 ish inches you have denison barbs, barbs from the genus dawkinsia, wild swordtails, velifera mollies, botia loaches. I wouldn't keep the barbs or loaches or anything bigger in very carefully manicured plantings though. I bet a big planted tank full of something like x. mayae would be very impressive.


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## badbart210 (Jan 15, 2017)

I have a bala shark and clown loaches. The bala shark darts too fast and can rip out plants, the loaches seems fine. If I had to do it over again I'd only buy smaller fish.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Like someone else said, how big of fish are your talking? When you get to really large fish, they can wreak havoc on plants just with their movement.

More medium size are Rainbow fish and Roseline Sharks. You will see them in many planted tanks. They stay in the 4" to 6" range, and are colorful and active. 

You also need to consider the habits of the species, as some are known plant eaters. My advice would be to do your research before you commit to anything. Good luck and look forward to seeing what you do.


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## mrswis (Dec 22, 2016)

I was just curious if anyone had a planted tank with some large fish. I have a small fish community tank, the largest fish in there are my 2 angels. Just wondering if anyone kept larger fish in their planted tanks.  

I totally forgot about ropefish! There are bichrs too. Though I never really see any big ones at the fish stores


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## Preetam (Jan 19, 2017)

I have kept large eels - Mastacembelus armatus, Channa Aurantimaculata, C. Stewrtii in planted aquariums. They will tear up the delicate plants, but hardy stem plants and large crypts do fine.


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## Kampo (Nov 3, 2015)

I've seen some nice bichir planted tanks, always wanted to do a big jungle tank with a pair of bichir. with a sump with a big ole guppy colony. toss a few dozen up to the top tank monthly as a sacrifice to the gods of the jungle tank lol.


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## filipem (May 1, 2008)

Discus comes to mind.

Not the easiest to care for but possible.


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## LadyHawk (Jan 25, 2017)

I currently have a Congo Puffer in a planted tank - I left plenty of space for him to bury himself and planted low tech plants around the perimeter. Works out well! He seems happy with the plants too.


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

check out this users thread, they keep some big fish in planted tanks:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/149-photography/1113362-lowtech-plants-cichlids-etc.html


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

Several of the larger cichlids work well with some advance planning. At times, several of us have had discussions of these. 
I find the larger fish do have some special points to consider but lots of that can be worked around. One point that stops some is the potential for digging so choosing the correct fish and setting the tank with planning for spots to dig and spots for planted can help a lot. 
On fish choice, I do not go with very many of the SA/CA cichlids as they do tend to be more trouble than I like but I find several of the African cichlids work well for me. When choosing the larger, I go with those who are from open water and less with those in the mbuna group. Mbuna, being rock fish, will naturally be found near and around the bottom and rocks. The Protomelas group are large bright colored and open water fish who tend to only go to the bottom rarely and when breeding. 
I set my tanks with open spots when I want them to breed and they go there while I keep my plants in other areas and up off the floor. If planning to use mbuna, who will dig under and around the rocks, look at putting the plants up on top of the rocks. 
This is my 125 with the largest being a nine inch male Protomela insignus and his females and an assortment of the more peaceful mbuna. I have used Labidocromis of several types, Yellow tail acei, bristlenose and algea eaters.


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## Billy Shaw (Feb 14, 2017)

How about a German Blue Ram. Big enough to catch your eye but doesn't tear out any plants.


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## MChambers (May 26, 2009)

Depends entirely on what you mean by large. If you think gourami are large, so that anything that size or bigger qualifies, there are probably hundreds of possibilities. Here's couple: rainbow cichlids (herotilapia multispinosa) or cupid cichlids (biotodoma cupido). Both are relatively peaceful and don't damage plants. Both get about 4-5".


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Billy Shaw said:


> How about a German Blue Ram. Big enough to catch your eye but doesn't tear out any plants.


gbr is only like 2-3"...


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## Hephaestus (Feb 2, 2017)

I have kept all of the following in a heavily planted 125gal at times: 
young Potamotrygon Reticulata (reticulated stingrays) (4-6" diameter)
Gobioides broussonnetii (dragon goby) 12-14" long
Indonesian datnoides 3-6" long
Petenia splendida (red bay snook) 3-6" long
various bichir 4-12" long
Herichthys pearsei 4-6" long
pike ciclids 3-6" long

Plus various others I can't remember. There was also a school of 30-40 bleeding heart tetras (Hyphessobrycon erythrostigma) and 15-20 various cories in this tank. Once the other fish would get big enough to start trying to eat the tetras or cories, I moved them to another tank for my larger fish (not planted). I had angelfish, german rams, and Geophagus brasiliensis all breed in this tank, although I never had any offspring survive.

The tank had a pool filter sand substrate (3-4" deep), large pieces of driftwood, several huge sword plants, hornwort, cabomba, some vallisneria, java fern, anacharis, and duckweed. Maybe some others I can't remember. I ran a 55gal sump, and used either 8 or 10 screw-in 75W CFL bulbs for lighting. Had a 20gal CO2 tank with a glass diffuser. Didn't dose any ferts, just relied on fish waste for nutrients. 

Some of the smaller plants would get uprooted occasionally early on, but once they were established, most of the rooted plants were all but impossible for the fish to knock loose. I had to aggressively trim the plants on a weekly basis or they would fill in every inch of the tank. When I finally broke the tank down to move, the entire substrate was full of roots, mostly from the swords.

If I can find some pictures on my home computer I'll post them up. Its probably been 6 years since I broke the tank down.


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## Acro (Jul 7, 2012)

I used to keep Fancy Goldfish in planted tanks. They got around 8" and were thick around the body. With Goldfish, plant selection is key. I don't have photos up, but many others keep goldfish in planted tanks successfully.




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## SallImSayin (Jan 30, 2017)

As far as big fish, I just have really big goldfish, the others are little. The goldfish don't mess with the two Amazon Sword plants (planted in tupperware, with tops on that have holes cut in the top). The Elodea is getting uprooted, it's planted in the same, but I didn't want to put a top on it. $10.99 for a whole set 40 pc Rubbermaid set at Amazon. Bare bottom.


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## mrswis (Dec 22, 2016)

LadyHawk said:


> I currently have a Congo Puffer in a planted tank - I left plenty of space for him to bury himself and planted low tech plants around the perimeter. Works out well! He seems happy with the plants too.


Never heard of them before, I had to go look them up. They are interesting looking!



Billy Shaw said:


> How about a German Blue Ram. Big enough to catch your eye but doesn't tear out any plants.


How big do German blue rams get?

Bump:


Acro said:


> I used to keep Fancy Goldfish in planted tanks. They got around 8" and were thick around the body. With Goldfish, plant selection is key. I don't have photos up, but many others keep goldfish in planted tanks successfully.
> 
> 
> .


Haha I didn't even think about goldfish. They have a lot of diseases though.


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

There are lots of fish who may fit with lots of plants. That leaves a pretty broad range but it does take some figuring out what we each want to see. I find I like the larger fish as they tend to be hardy and more accepting of small mistakes. Rather than just suddenly shows up dead, they may sulk and act "off" for a few week. For me, that is better, so my big question was what type of plants to add to the tank to make the fish look good. I normally have run with very hard and alkaline water so I tried a few plants that I felt would work with my fish and some did and some didn't. Generally I stay away from the small delicate plants that don't root very well and go for the big heavy root types. 
In gardening, I find it useless to try to fight nature so choose plants that work best where I'm planting. I find it the same in my tanks.


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## Hephaestus (Feb 2, 2017)

PlantedRich said:


> Generally I stay away from the small delicate plants that don't root very well and go for the big heavy root types.


This. Anything that was small or delicate and needed to root didn't make it in my tank. The stingrays and geophagus always uprooted them.

Hardier root plants like swords did really well, and floating plants worked great as well.

Also, German Blue Rams usually only get up to about 2-2.5" in length. I never had any get over 2". They are a small fish, but have great appearance and personality, and usually breed very easily.


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## Acro (Jul 7, 2012)

mrswis said:


> Haha I didn't even think about goldfish. They have a lot of diseases though.


I can't agree that "they have a lot of diseases" as compared to any other aquarium fish. Maybe the "feeder" goldfish, that are raised in less-than-pristine conditions do. But if you get healthy goldfish from a reputable source, and you keep the tank conditions healthy, there really shouldn't be any extra problems. 

I would avoid the more drastically deformed breeds of goldfish however, as they are more delicate, but no more prone to disease if kept in healthy water.

Whatever you do, good luck! 



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## rafini (Oct 25, 2015)

How large are we talking?
Heres a few larger fish that I have in planted set ups

1. Filament Barbs








2. Rainbows

















3. The rarest fish I own at about 5-6" Triportheus angulatus
Picked this guy up because I`d never seen one since and I had a feeling I would never see one again. Plus they have quite a marine look to them as apposed to typical Characins.


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