Convicts And Color

[sic0198]

I've heard convicts will destroy plants. So I conducted an expirament. Well I thought I'd buy some cheap plants and experience this for myself. So as I chose some cheap ones I saw a red plant and a green one. So I bought 'em both, I had wanted to see if color was a factor. I put 'em in there after a few days the green one was gone but they didn't touch the red one. Maybe they didn't like the taste of it. But do you think color had been a factor. Can cons see in color?

 

[Colin_T]

All fish can see colour and in fact they see a better range of colours than people do.

It depends on what the red plant was and where it was located compared to the fish's territory. Many red plants that are sold in shops are actually marsh plants and have very tough leaves. Some green plants are also marsh plants. The only way to be a little more accurate with your experiment would be to have a green and a red plant of the same species that have both been grown in the same conditions and be the same size. You would need to have a few of each and put them around the fish's cave or have them spread evenly around a small area. Then if the fish didn’t like a particular colour they would theoretically destroy the ones they don’t like and leave the others alone.
Chances are the fish simply got rid of the plant that was in their way and left the other one because it wasn't a problem where it was located.

 

[sic0198]

Your probably right, but I put both plants side by side. The fish checked 'em both on and destroyed the green one. The red one is much larger too and the green one was a floating plant too.

 

[juanveldez]

the biggest thing that I have noticed after years of keeping cichlids is that they are their own interior decorators. there is no rhyme nor reason to what they do. they just seem to know what they like and what they don't most often with plastic plants they will just dig them up and let them float, and with live they just destroy them.