to plant or not to plant

[PhishPhreek]

Semper, thankyou for the 2 big beautiful albino tiger oscars.  I am convinced they are both males... Everyonce in a while, They charge each other with open mouths and play a little tug of war and even dig holes in the gravel but no eggs.  But most of the time they slowly cruse the 68g tank or float sedately in the far corner.

I have been considering planting their tank.  I expect it would have to be large plants with sturdy root systems,  Amazon swords or Marble Queen radacans.  Something that would take substantial effort to dig up and could handel the occasional high speed fly by.

Has anyone had experience with large oscars in a planted tank ?

Any recomendations as to plants, equipment or precautions ?
tank is 12d x 48w x24h with 2 -18" flourescent fixtures that have seen better days.
I plan on buying or building a canopy with a better lighting system.
substrate is about 3" of natural gravel (sandblast sand)
and I am currently collecting all the parts for a CO2 system.

[armthehomeless]

Re: to plant or not to plant

I had oscars in what was originally a planted tank. I thought anubius, java fern and swords might make it.  Although the anubias and java fern didn't do too bad, they didn't enjoy the success they originally had. The swords got trashed. Mine were uprooted avery couple of days. I eventually took out all plants and just the tanks empty except for various rocks and driftwood. I imagine that anubias rooted to driftwood would do okay. I could have been that the oscars needed more room than I gave them. I had 3 in an 80g. I gave the oscars away when I moved.

Good luck. If you do manage to get oscars torespect plants, explain how you did it. It was one of the many mysteries that I was never able to crack.