What is the safest option for my tank?

melissasroja

melissasroja

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Sep 28, 2010
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Connecticut
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Melissa
Id like to get some kind of cleanup fish for my tank. It has guppies, platies, mollies and danios. Its heavily planted so my fry seem to do ok on their own away from the big fish until I manage to net them but I want something that is least likely to go after the fry. The tank doesnt have much algae at all so a Pleco isnt really the best option I dont think. I was thinking of going with either a cory cat or a ghost shrimp but someone told me the platy and molly will eat the shrimp. Then I thought an apple snail. So here are my questions. Which of these options would be best and would I be ok with only one of these optoins or a mix of the options or two of the same species or what? Thanks.

Melissa
 
otto's always a good choice there small and only eat algae and wont damage your plants, fasiling that a bristle nose plec only grow too around 3/4 inch but could damage some leave on your softer plants. if u was geting otto's keep them in groups tho about 4/5 is good plce on his own or with a female
 
love cory's i have a few types but the most active are albino type which is the bronze cory without pigments and they jsut never stop in search for food
 
First, how big is the tank and how many of the listed fish are in it? It's good to see how stocked you are already.

If you're looking for a clean up crew for food bits then the ghost shrimp are probably your best choice. Try a few, they are really cheap and then you can see if your fish bother them or not. Otherwise I would recommend looking into some of the so called pest snails. Ramshorns or MTS in particular. They are great for cleaning up leftover food and as long as you don't over feed your tank they won't get out of control. They also clean up decaying plant matter.

If you would prefer an apple snail then you may need to feed it a piece of zucchini or algae wafer. I don't think food bits are enough for these guys. Otos are not a good choice either. They are useful for certain types of algae but not food clean up. Cories are great but depending on your tank size you may not have room for a group and a group is what's best for them. They would also need an additional food source.
 
Ok thanks. Its 29 gallon and will have all males by the end of the week when I move the females to their new tank. It will end up with 4 guppy males, 1 platy male, 1 molly male and 3 danio. Right now it also has 3 female guppies, 2 female mollies, 1 female platy. So it will be 9 total where right now its 15 total. It has shockingly little algae. I feed flakes, frozen brine shrimp and frozen blood worms. I do have algae wafers as I give them to my pleco thats in my betta tank and also to my chinese algae fish thats in my goldfish tank. Would ghost shrimp and cories mix well together or no?
 
In my experience, cories and ghost shrimp do fine together. I think you'll have room for a group of cories too. I recommend 5-6. Just be sure to throw in a wafer every few nights for them. They will appreciate it.
 
Bristlenose Pleco.Ive never had them damage my plants.You have room for cory's.Get one species and keep them in a group of five.Good luck...
 
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