Silver dollars are lawn mowers. Angelfish would ignore the plants.
Everyone else would nibble to varying degrees, depending on the plant and
its condition. I've used sand as a substrate, but only occasionally with
live plants. When I did, I didn't notice any special problems, but my
experience is limited. I generally find that fine sands pack too
tightly. MTS keep it churned up.

NetMax

"Greg van Reyk" wrote in message
...
TOP POSTED
at least my plastic plants wont be eaten up, having issues with my
220ltr
3ft tank, it has an ecceletic mix of fish including
2 large angels
2 blue gourami
2 dwarf gourami
5 scissor tails
4med silver dollars
3 silver sharks
4 barbs
2 clown loaches
and a sucker fish of some discription..
i have gone threw hundreds of dollars worth of plants, fertilizer
a carbon co2 setup, and i get home from work and my plants have been
chomped
on,

the new tank is a 2ft and is approx 160ltrs (i counted with 5 ltr
buckets of
water after the substrate was in lol)
so i figured id give pastic plants a go for a while then see what
happens.
btw. my substrate is fine sand, would that pose a problem with plants
at a
later stage?
thanks in Advance.
"NetMax" wrote in message
. ..

"Greg van Reyk" wrote in message
...
I have recently setup a 2ft discus tank, I have had it up for 2
months,
2
weeks of that with my discus in, I have a few Questions though.
1. could someone id these fish please, I think they are Blue
Diamonds,
2. my tank is very tall, I am going to purchase another pair of
Discus,
but
what other types of fish would be suited to my tank, as it looks a
little
bare
Water parameters are Ph: 5.8-6 temp 84F, ammonia, nitrate,
nitrides
all 0
picture of my discus available below.
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/sydney_chef79 in the folder marked fish.
thanks in advance

Are those plastic plants in there? Careful the Discus police do not
come
to your house ;~) If I remember correctly, Blue diamonds have a
stripe
through the eye and Blue cobalt have clear eyes. Yours have black
eyes,
but what's in a name? They are all color morphs of one of two types
of
discus. People often put Cardinal tetras with their Discus. If you
don't mind having fish which are not biotope correct, then there are
many
other tetras and rasboras which go well with them. You will need to
take
the time to acclimate them to your acidic pH though.

You can fill some of your tank with natural plants. Discus habitat
best
with long thin plants like Vals. You don't mention your tank volume.
Keep in mind the eventual size of the Discus, and they will quarrel,
so
some extra space is usually needed.

NetMax