All depends on the type of fish you're getting. Community Tank save fish I'll go with mollies, swordtales, Oto cat, True SAE, Busynose Pleco/Rubbernose Pleco
Algae Eating Fish
- Thread starter Jamie
- Start date
hi fin banded shark loves algae, very peacefull, and sifts sand well. will get huge though, and ugly. i have one. i'll keep it untill it gets too big and will give it away. this fish is also great for ponds and does well in cool water. it will not eat any size fish no metter how big it will get.
LimnoMan said:
When I put some larger gouramis in my 75-gal planted tank with an algae problem, they eliminated it overnight. I was quite impressed. They immediately started browsing on it, and by the next morning it was all gone. In my case it was a white 'slime' type of algae growing on my lace rock.
O cat
I started with one o-cat and he did great, I have bought more, but after about a month only one is left alive. I'd like to think that this is my original o-cat, but I really don't know. Before dieing off, all the o-cats were looking fat and healthy; they were almost always pooping, which I have understood as a good sign. Their deaths seemed odd in that they died off together, like some sort of suicide pack. It could be a water quality issue, but I do a partial water change and test regularly. I assuage my guilt in thinking that they were not as healthy as I had thought. After all, I still have one o-cat going strong for almost a year now. I'll add a molly to help with the algae and try out some more o-cats... They are a cool fish.
I started with one o-cat and he did great, I have bought more, but after about a month only one is left alive. I'd like to think that this is my original o-cat, but I really don't know. Before dieing off, all the o-cats were looking fat and healthy; they were almost always pooping, which I have understood as a good sign. Their deaths seemed odd in that they died off together, like some sort of suicide pack. It could be a water quality issue, but I do a partial water change and test regularly. I assuage my guilt in thinking that they were not as healthy as I had thought. After all, I still have one o-cat going strong for almost a year now. I'll add a molly to help with the algae and try out some more o-cats... They are a cool fish.
Many of the problems with ottos are that they are fish caught live in the wild. While I haven't seen any absolute confirmed reports, the general belief is that in order to catch otto's wild the waters they live in are mildly poisoned in order to temporarily paralyze the fish. That combined with staging and shipping tanks being kept Super-Clean in order to cut down on infections leads to alot of malnutrition among them, which causes them to stress and be prone to disease.
Ottos need to be eating constantly to be healthy, and they tend to be fragile to abrupt WC changes due to their non-domestic origin. I have good luck with ottos because my LFS treats them very well and feeds them true otto food (algae wafers and prepared vegtables) rather than just throwing flake food and calling it good, or assuming that 10 ottos can survive off the algae in one of those little 7.5g display tanks.
Generally, if you can get an otto to last a month, chances are you'll have him for a good long time.
Ottos need to be eating constantly to be healthy, and they tend to be fragile to abrupt WC changes due to their non-domestic origin. I have good luck with ottos because my LFS treats them very well and feeds them true otto food (algae wafers and prepared vegtables) rather than just throwing flake food and calling it good, or assuming that 10 ottos can survive off the algae in one of those little 7.5g display tanks.
Generally, if you can get an otto to last a month, chances are you'll have him for a good long time.
on the subject of algae eating fish can anyone tell me wether the golden rosy barb is a good algae eater or ist it just the rosy barb that eats algae? Also I amthinking about getting some amano shrimp but have a pair of angelfish that are mateing continuosly and are hatching some eggs at the moment , should i split the angel fish up as they are quite aggressive when gaurding their eggs as i dont really want any more angel fish and am worried about them killing the shrimp.
I absolutely love reading forums for advice, but this thread is a great example of why you shouldn't take things written in forums as fact. I was skimming the thread for people's perspective on SAEs and was impressed by the amount of misinformation. I'm happy to say that by the thread most of the misinformation was addressed, but all it takes is for someone to stop reading before the end of the thread for them to leave thinking that CAEs are algae eaters (false) or SAEs are agressive (false, probably actually had a very similar looking fish).
Just remember to double check what you read with a reputable source.
Just remember to double check what you read with a reputable source.
