need help from the Algae Eater brigade

It's the gold form of the Chinese Algae eater. Do NOT get them. Let me repeat that: do NOT get them. They are cute when they are small, but grow rather quickly and start terrorizing other tank mates. And it's a pain in the a$$ to net them out later. Get the true Siamese Algae or Otocinclus instead.

yeah gold chinese algae eater.Good thing you didn't buy one.

What type of algae are you trying to get rid of? This will determine what kind of algae eater you need. I have tried out lots of algae eaters and this is what i found.

bristlenose plecos- They eat the most variation, soft green algae, brown algae and hair algaes.

otos- Mostly brown algae(diatoms) they have never touched green algae in my tanks.

SAE- good for hair algae and even BBA(although they have to be practically starving to eat it)

Zebra snail- eats brown and green algae off the glass

I have yet to find a algae eater that will eat the hard green spot algae that forms on my glass and sometimes plants. In this case a razor blade works best.

In most cases you shouldn't even need an algae eater. I got my algae eaters beacuse i likes the fish and didn't have an algae problem at the time. Most algae can be fixed my light amounts, water changes making usre you dont' have too many nutrients in the water and Adding live plants help.

My ottos eat brown and green algae. They are, IMO the best algae eaters out there.

Snails and shrimp

MTS are good for brown algae.

Amano shrimp are good for green algae and work very hard on brush algae, too.

I wouldn't have a planted tank without otos and shrimp. MTS eat fish eggs I read so I'd have them in every tank that I wasn't hoping to get any fry from.

Here's the note on availability of GAEs...they're widely available.

What did you wind up getting for the tank or, for our reference, what fish do you have in it now? We can help you find a good algae eater if you give us that info.

Golden Algae Eater, also denoted as GCAE to represent the fact that they are variations upon the wild-type Chinese Algae Eater.

Many more abbreviations can be found on my website: glossary.aaquaria.com.