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I want to stock a small group of multi's in my 12 gallon, but I wanted to check a few things first,
Will black sand be a good substrate?
Will I have to remove my sword plant?
Can I add rocks in addition to shells for the fish to live in?
I have trumpet snails and amano shrimp in the tank will there be any conflict over territory or will the higher Ph required for multi's negatively effect the inverts?
My Ph is roughly 7.3 now, how much do I need to increase it?
Will one male and two females be a good initial stock?

Any other advice on small shellie tanks or links to research would be appreciated.

"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man" Simpsons

I don't know about putting multi's in a 12gallon, but putting multi's with your amanos is not going to work. If you want to keep the amanos that is. In a heavily planted tank the shrimp would be able to hide or find safety. Without that they just become multi food! Yummy

Multis in a 12 gallon would be fine, but the amanos as mentioned will have to go and your swordplant will be dug up overnight (after the multis spend a day or two settling in...they are bulldozers with fins).

Multis really don't care about rocks - so you could add some if you like - does add to the tank's look. Also, be sure and trade out your substrate for aragonite sand...you must have sand for multis to be really happy and natural.

Eric

I agree with what's already been said - no plants or shrimp and plenty of sand (whatever type or colour), they'll most likely ignore any rocks but the rocks can be used as barriers between territories, just give them plenty of shells and leave them to it.

Here's a couple of links for some useful info on them:
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/n_multifasciatus.php
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=1749