# Anubias and African cichlids okay together?



## Aplomado (Feb 20, 2013)

I've got a coworker with an aquarium of African cichlids from Lakes of Malawi and Tanganyika, the biggest being about six inches. 

Are these compatible with anubias growing in the rockwork?

Thanks!


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

Any idea of which African cichlids? Since there are so many types and kinds and they often have totally different lifestyles, more info is needed. Some will only eat algae while others may live only on bugs on the surface so how they treat plants is going to depend on which they have. 
Generally speaking, if they are true algae eaters, they are more prone to eating veggies. But then much of the written info is old and describe fish eating algae when more recent study finds they only comb the algae for the small "bugs" found in the algae. At first the story was that all mbuna (rock fish) ate algae but that is not true at all. 
On a more practical level and not knowing what fish, I have had only small trouble with Malawi cichlids and anubia. Part of the deal is finding if they are diggers and then placing the plants in spots where the fish don't dig. For instance if you have fish who want to dig out a burrow under the rocks and you plant things between the rock to come up, there is likely to be a problem. But if fish dig under the rocks and you put your plants up away from the bottom, they will rarely bother them. I find anubia to be one which I semi-automatically glue to a rock or wood which is up and away from digging. 
Putting plants in trays may still not work if you figure wrong? 

Epic failure?


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## Aplomado (Feb 20, 2013)

The anubias would be tied to the rocks or wedged between them...


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

As we can never really tell when we might get a rogue fish, it will often be a guess but in guessing I would go for the combo and expect it to work okay. Anubias are slow but pretty tough so at worst one might find them needing to move. For the fish eating , them, I would call that okay in most cases. When I get algae on the plant leaves, I see my guys sucking on the algae but don't spot any actual eating so I live you the sometimes pulling things out. 
Just like with a dog or cat, we have to decide how much grieve we want to ignore! My fish have never jumped on my bed at night.


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## iamtechno (Sep 23, 2013)

Anubias will be just fine. It is one plant that almost no fish will eat and it is easily hardy enough in most tanks to do just fine. I've slowly gotten my brother to put anubias in most of his tanks and all he has are African cichlids of all kinds and never had a single issue. You'll be just fine. Anubias are not tasty even for fish or aquatic guys that like to eat plants. The only time I'd see maybe some stunted growth is if it were in a Tanganyika tank with a high pH but they still do just fine, just grow slower.

Bump: And yeah they woluld need to be tied down as Africans are known to move some substrate. Tie them to a certain rocks/driftwood or whatever and the roots should slowly take hold in them. I've got them in every tank I have. By far my favorite plant group for the aquarium


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## Betta132 (Nov 29, 2012)

Anubias doesn't actually care all that much if it's loose, IME, as long as it isn't being bumped around and damaged. It's fine just sitting somewhere in a loose clump.


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## iamtechno (Sep 23, 2013)

Yeah it will float around and be just fine but while it sits at the top the leaves grow in odd directions as I have a few of my smaller nana petite's, coffeefolia and barteri's just floating. It's to easy to just tie it down for a couple of weeks and then you've got a nice piece. I've got plenty of driftwood and rocks with plants attached to it that you can move whenever or even tank to tank.


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