Stopping loaches digging out new plants - will this work?

[whetu]

As much as I love my little loaches, they make it very difficult to keep new plants planted long enough to get established. They dig around in the substrate and lift the plants to look under them in case someone has hidden a treat under there or something. :roll:

Established plants seem to be ok though - once the roots are fairly well anchored, the loaches can dig around a bit and the plants stay planted.

So I've been thinking: why not use cloches like you would in a terrestrial garden?

Check out this link for an illustration of what I'm thinking of:

http://www.englishcreekgardens.com/Cloche1.htm

So I plant my plant, then get a glass jar and invert it over the plant, and leave it there until the roots get established. Then I remove the jar and the loaches can't dig it up.

I would call it a loach cloche.

Whaddayareckon then?

[VinsonMassif]

If you want to put up with a glass as an eyesore (only IMO) then go for it.

In my tanks my loaches go nuts doing the same thing. I place a ring of small rocks around the base of the plant to hold it in place. It keeps the loaches at bay until the roots are established.

[whetu]

I've tried the rock technique and it has never really worked for me. Perhaps I need to take some lessons in dry stone wall building. Somehow the plants always end up floating again. Also with fine carpet plants it would be hard to use the rocks without squashing the plants, wouldn't it?

As for the eyesore, hopefully the jar wouldn't have to be in there for long. Especially if I put a fertiliser tab under the plant when I planted it.

The things that worry me are:

a) Light. My tank has good light but the extra layer of glass might be enough to cause trouble.

b) CO2. Perhaps I could squirt a little flourish excel into the jar each day? Or even feed a DIY CO2 line into the cloche! (Ok now this is getting complicated)

[VinsonMassif]

For small carpet plants have you thought about placing a plastic grill on top with each plantlet poking through the holes, then cover with substrate? I did this with java moss and it worked. I used an old grill that sits inside the canister filter.

As for the rest of your plants, I found the 3" round flat schist rocks work well. They were $1 each from the lfs. Or I guess you could find some down the beach.

The rooting tabs do speed up the plants establishing themselves so much compared with not using them.