try a bristle-nose pleco for algae control?

[Flory]

Hi all,
(OT paragraph) I'm back from Kauai where the reef fish were beautiful and the many humpback whales were incredible! I didn't get to see any sea turtles or dolphins, but did spot several endangered birds, very exciting, especially the colorful ones in the mountain forest.
Was glad to get back to my own FW fishes and find everyone looking lively. The EHEIM vacation feeder worked great. However, it's open season for the algae, and I now seem to have three kinds: hair (on plants), green (on glass and slate), and black (on slate). Evidently the 4 otos, 3 corys, and 2 shrimp (if they didn't become somebody's lunch) are not keeping it all in check, even with frequent and massive water changes. I want to stick with small fish and am close to the bioload limit for the tank. I'm thinking of adding a bristle-nose pleco. Opinions, other suggestions? Thanks!
Cheers, Flory

 

[theotheragentm]

You're already starting to push it on your stock list. That's probably part of the reason for your algae. I don't recommend critters for algae eating as they do a spotty job or grow too large for tanks. I'd recommend more frequent water changes, less light, and possibly less feeding.

Can you let us know about your light schedule? What type of light do you have on the tank? Any sunlight hitting the tank? How much/often do you feed?

 

[Flory]

The light is on 15 hrs/day; it comprises one All Glass 25W tube. No sunlight or other light reaches the tank. I feed a pinch of flakes in the morning and one (thawed) cube of bloodworms in the evening. The flakes are all gone within about 3 min and the bloodworms in less than 30 sec! Many thanks for your thoughts about this.

 

[KnaveTO]

Let me first off state that plecos should never be purchased for algae control. Yes they do eat algae but they also need a lot of other stuff in their diet to be healthy. Some pecies require meat, some require greens, some require wood and all of them don't subside on algae alone. Furthermore the only algae a plec will eat is the green kind. The black and hair algae won't be touched by these fish. With hair algae the best way to deal with it is to remove the infected leaf from the tank altogether. If it is on your equipment you will need to break it down and give it a very good scrubbing and then does it with Hydrogen Peroxide. That should kill most of it on the equipment.

 

[Mgamer20o0]

i agree with knaveto.... plecos have a high bio load. best bet to fix it your self. a little too late but i wouldnt have had the lights on so long when you were gone.

 

[RiVerfishgirl]

Furthermore the only algae a plec will eat is the green kind.

That's absolutely not true.
Bristlenoses especially seem to love brown diatom algae. Our 90g gets indirect sunlight from a window and grows brown algae on the pvc we have in there for our ropefish. We rotate the pvc into our 75g for our pair of BNs and they eat all of it off within a few hrs. Our "gold nugget" pleco will eat brown algae also, but not to the extent that our BNs do.

I do, however, agree that plecos shouldn't be purchased souly for algae control. Plecos are pretty big eaters and therefore add quite a bit of bioload for one fish. They also need their diet supplemented with their own prepared foods. If you don't mind that, a bristlenose will usually do a number on many types of algae, but not EVERY type of algae.

If all you want is to get rid of your algae then watch your water parameters and don't leave your lights on as long, not to mention manual removal.

 

[Flory]

Okay, I've cut down the light from 15 hrs to 12 hrs/day, during the time when I really want to watch the fish. Also I've cut the flake food way down to 1/8 tsp; I realized that "a pinch" was too imprecise as well as far too much food. The fish seem to be doing fine with less, and there's less waste food. I will continue weekly 50% water changes, and see if the algae situation improves. I gave up trying to remove the hair algae, for the present (I'd like to not uproot the plants unless I have to) and will continue to scrape the tank walls and vacuum the gravel each time I do the water change. Will see if this regimen helps. Also I got a phosphate test kit and will start testing that as well as nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia.
Which leads me to another question: should I continue to feed my aquatic plants? I add Kent plant food, which does include phosphate, weekly. I know it's feeding the algae too, but don't want to deprive the desirable plants if they need this nutrient. What's the best way to strike this balance?
Also thanks, Mgamer, wish it had occurred to me to cut back the lights while away on vacation! Next time I'll know.
I will keep the same stock for the time being. I appreciate the various viewpoints about bristle-noses and plecos in general.

 

[KnaveTO]

Well first off I will say what you are suggesting for the most part to do are all excellent processes to follow. It is very difficult to starve fish by the way. So when you are travelling for short (i.e. 7 days or less) periods of time you can actually not worry about having someone feed your fish. Longer periods is a bit of a different story. For longer periods get an automatice feeder (Eheim makes a good one) and do not use those feeder blocks as all they really do is foul up your water. When cutting down on feeding reduce the amount fed but increase the times fed... i.e. feed twice a day rather than once.

As for your plants... plants require a fair number of nutrients to grow however it is a balance of light, co2, and nutrients (iron, potassium, phosphorus, nitrogen, and micro nutrients). Have that balance out of whack and you have the opportunity for algae growth. The trick is the balancing act. I really wish I could say there was a magic bullet here but there isn't... the only thing is trial and error to figure out where your balance is. I would suggest you stay with a manufactured fertilization system (such as Seachem or another company) and read their recomended dosage. You will also have to attempt to figure out how heavily your tank is planted and adjust the suggested dosages accordingly.

Sorry I can't be more specific in that area.

 

[Flory]

Things seem to be settling down with less algae growth, I'm happy to report. The hair algae is still present, and brown algae returns on the slate rocks after I clean them, but there's much less green algae on the glass than previously. I am continuing the above regimen, and have also started feeding the plants both macro and micronutrient food. They look better already.
I also asked my LFS about the local water, and found that the city does add a small amount of phosphate. Since I am using tap water (plus dechlorinator and salt) for my massive water changes, it's not surprising that last week I found 1 ppm phosphate in the water. Is this enough to warrant taking action to remediate phosphate? I bought some "phosphate sponge" (in crystal form) that I could put in my extra filter-box cage, but haven't tried it yet. I also found 5 ppm nitrate last week; this was the first time I've had a positive result for nitrate. Nitrite continued at 0 ppm. Should I take any action about nitrate, or just continue to monitor? I test nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, and phosphate every week before doing the water change.
Thanks for all the help! I do have an Eheim vacation feeder, and it worked great (better than my neighbors) while I was away recently.
Cheers, Flory

 

[KnaveTO]

You may want to consider adding Nitrates tou your dosing regime and do not add any more phosphate as it appears that you have a possible issue on that number there. If your city is adding phosphates to the water already you may be fine on that score without adding them to your fert regime.