Rainbows with fake plants

[Somethings Fishy]

I have a planted tank with some Boesmani in it. My missus likes the display I have & would like to add some rainbows to her Geophagus tank. It's a 6x2x2ft so we don't really want the bills for maintaining a planted tank of that size, or the initial set up costs of the co2 system & the lights we would need.So my question is would the rainbows be comfortable in a tank with fake plants instead of real ones? Also what is a cheap way of keeping the PH down around the 7.0 mark? Our tap water comes out at PH 8.2, so I have to treat a substantial amount of water each week.Any tips on keeping & breeding Geophagus Steindachneri would also be very welcome.

 

[neilanh]

I can't help with breeding, but I kept Boesmani's in a community tank with all fake decor for a long time and it seemed to work. I will say that within a week of moving them into a larger, planted tank their colors came out, though.