EBA’s uprooting plants

[Oli]

I’ve been trying to introduce some small foreground carpeting plants to my aquarium but my Electric Blue Acaras have been showing lots of interest and uprooting them very quickly. I am unsure of the species but will attach pictures. I am wandering if it would be possible to apply a small amount of glue to the bottom of the plant and attach it to a small rock which I could then push under the surface of the gravel?

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

I doubt you'd be able to successfully glue them down, they won't grow if you glue their roots anyway....you might just have to accept that the acaras just don't like where you're planting them and give it up as a bad job

 

[Wills]

I think the plant is dwarf sag but you will have a hard time growing a carpet with cichlids due to their digging. It’s a bit of an either/or situation.

Attaching these plants to rock probably wouldn’t work as you’d have to attach the whole carpet.

 

[Oli]

I figured if I could glue the initial 10/15 plants ever so slightly just off the base of the root, it may give them a better chance to stay put and the roots to get bigger, therefore solidifying them in the gravel. Sounds like I may have to give up on smaller plants and stick to the larger ones

 

[GaryE]

It's a fish noted for its digging abilities and interests. Excavation is their business.

 

[Wills]

Yeah thats the best choice I reckon. One option you could look at is doing small growing Anubias and Buce species on small chunks of rock? Not exactly the grass look of Sagitaria and it would take a long long... long long time before it could be considered a carpet but it would give you some foreground plants. An other one you could maybe try is a Hydrocotyle species as they tend to creep along the bottom without putting serious roots down Tripartita is the smallest but the common species (I forget the name) is sort of 10p sized leaves but do creep.

Wills