Hi,

I've been in the process of building a 55 gal freshwater planted tank for the last few weeks. Will post pics soon, the white LED lighting is temp wired in until I finish the Arduino lighting controller/dimmer.

Trying to decide what fish to put in it once it's done cycling. I've read that alot of fish like to dig up plants, so I'm really looking for suggestions of what and what not to get.

Thanks in advance,
Don

Most community fish are fine with plants. Avoid large common plecos, and cichlids as most will eat your plants. Any idea what types of fish you like? we may be able to help you better if you give us an idea of what your interested in keeping.

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"Being ignorant is not so much a Shame, as being unwilling to learn".-- Benjamin Franklin

ARDUINO!! WOOT!! GEEK POWER!!

Generally Goldish are not a good idea. Although neither are cichlids, there are a number of plants that they will leave alone or not bother much.

hmmmm...aren't those controllers commonly used for Christmas light control?

Well, I've been looking around at the LFS and Petco trying to get ideas. I'm leaning towards starting with some livebearers.

@jrman83: Arduino controllers are used for all kinds of things. This will be my first practical project with one, outside of some tutorial stuff and experimenting. I program A/V control systems for a living(specifically AMX), so I'm not anticipating any problems. I promise I'll do a picture thread once I get everything done.

Live bearers. Excellent choice for planted tank. And did you say AMX? I work with AMX and Cisco A/V equip almost every day. What a small world!

Live bearers are a good choice and the no cichlids or gold fish is excellent advice.

But IME you can use goldfish. it seems after awhile they ignore the plants.

FWIW and with effort you can have a tank balanced and stabilized with live plants with any kind of fish. All you have to do is keep the fish in one area and the plants in another. But that is really not a planted tank where the fish and plants coexist. But it still has all the benifits of a tank balances and stabilized with plant life.

my .02

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

Small world indeed, I wouldn't have guessed anyone on here would know what AMX was. What kind of work do you do? I've been in the audio biz for ~10 years now, started off mixing live shows and moved to mostly design/install as the company grew (although I still go out and work some of our bigger events when they need another engineer)

Cheers,
Don

I've got Cardinal Tetras, Harlequin Rasboras, Oto Cats, Angels and Honey Gourami all in planted tanks and none of them up root any plants.

If you do want a pleco, Bushy/bristle nose plecos are a good option, as they tend to be fairly gentle on plants and stay smaller - usually 4-6". I've got 2 Clown Plecos in one of my tanks and they leave the plants alone completely - clowns are wood eating plecs but they will eat some algae, also very small at around 3-4". Any pleco should have some real drift' wood in the tank, as they do eat it.

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20g Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981
36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981