I'm getting a few African Cichlids today all very small...I started a planted fresh water tank a few Months back and it's doing well. So I want to start another small tank with the Cichlids. Years ago I had a tank with them with fake plants before I got the salt water bug and now I back. My question is how well they do in a planted tank?
I agree they will eat destroy your plants.
there are some plante like anubia (i think) the plant eaters will leave alone but they are very slow growing and therefore it is very hard to get the tank balanced out.
One solution I to partition the tank into a small planted section and a large fish section. Or to run an external refugium for the plants.
I think there would be some kind of partition to that the viewer from the front could see the plants in the background but still protect those plants from the fish. On my 55g marine I just used eggcrate but that does hide the plants in back.
my .02