Right....

Ive kept corys but uptill now had no luck with them

Ive heard that corys prefer sand & I'm thinking thats why the groups Ive had (Sterbia & Panda) have all ended up dying.

What other species are good bottom feeders for eating up the food that ends up at the bottom of the tank ?

My tank is only 70 L so nothing to big and they would also have to get on with my bristlenose.

Any suggestions would be a real help.

By the way...The tank is 14 months old & all the relevant Water tests are fine..Water PH is slightly high though in my area

Ta

The pepered corys in my old tank did well on a gravel substrate. I had to feed them sinking algae pellets and the like (although the platties and guppies ended up eating them instead!!)

If there is a large amount of surplus food reaching the bottom of the tank, perhaps you are feeding them a little too much, or putting too much in too quickly so it all sinks before they've had a chance to eat it. Ideally you should be feeding both the corys and top-dwellers seperately. (E.g. feeding flake/live/frozen foods and pellets/vegetables etc)

hope this helps

This post has been edited by sketchy: May 16 2008, 11:29 AM

Hi, you are correct in thinking that cory prefer sand. It is very much kinder on their barbles as the like to burrow. They also like to take in sand to sieve out the minute particles of food then exhaling the sand through the gills. Lastly, as they spend their time on the bottom they are always in the muck which, with gravel especially, can house alot of the bad kind of bacteria causing infections.

They also like somewhere to hide, like a cave/pot or under a log. You will find that the more places they have to hide the more you will see them as they get bolder knowing safety is not far away. If you feed them with sinking pellet and the odd bloodworm an hour or so after lights out without putting on the room light then they get more chance of getting their fare share.

If you stir up the sand in the daytime then look at it first thing in the morning you will see all the tracks made from a hard nights foraging!

i think you should not bother getting anymore bottom feeders or maybe getting another BN plec

Yes I was maybe thinking that...coz BN plecs are

Corys are off my radar now.

Well I have a female Albino at the moment & definatley the boss of my tank, shes been in since March 07 and has really come on well..

Is there anything I need to be mindful of if I get an additional BN ? say, could i get a normal BN (not Albino) does it matter what sex the new one would be.

A thing that you need to be mindful of with any bottom feeder is that they can't survive long on the small amount of food that escapes the top feeders. They actually need to be fed on purpose with food that is suitable to them. If enough food gets away from top feeders to feed them well, it often means you are overfeeding the tank so the dilema is delivering the food to the bottom without polluting the water. One way that seems to work for many people is to feed some after lights out so the bottom feeders can find te food on the bottom when the other fish can't see well enough to beat them to it.

chinese algae eater does a good job, shrimps also...and they look cool!

i second that...shrimps are awesome!!!

Tell me Why & post up some piccies....

Also wats the downside of shrimps (if any)

haven't come across any downsides to shrimps yet! They just mind their own business, pick all the crap up off the bottom of the tank and scavenge any leftover food, plus they are pretty fascinating to watch. Mine hid for a couple of weeks and i thought they'd been eaten, until they both came out one day and that was that...nosey little buggers now! I didn't realise they shed their skin until a few weeks ago when i saw a shrimp "outer" on the sand! Mine are ghost shrimps, but i'm looking into a few cherry shrimps soon.

Can't post a close up pic as my camera is a bit naff!!

This post has been edited by drjulesd: May 20 2008, 08:29 PM

Thks Jules...Ima check out those shrimps...

Wat about "otos" would they fit in with a BN Plec I know they are sensitive beggers but i should have no probs on that front....

Oto's are like tiny plecs, they suck onto the glass and graze off algae. They're good but yes a bit sensitive, expecially when moving to a new home.

Maybe a small loach species as bottom feeder? Dwarf chain loach perhaps ?

Or how about getting another bristlenose so you have a pair, they are quite easy to breed as well

Otocinclus won't help much on the leftover food front. If its not something green, they won't touch it. Unlike many plecs, they are almost exclusively algae eaters. Artificially feeding them means algae wafers, zucchini slices and the like. If you don't have an algae problem, chances are they will not fare very well.