Big Cleanup - Hair Algae

[NeonTetra97]

Hi all,
 
It has been quite a while since I have been on TFF, I have been busy with GCSEs and all that stuff so I have not been able to devote as much time as I normally do to my tank. The past month has seen an explosion in hair algae and the tank generally not looking very clean. Yesterday I finally got round to cleaning the algae as best I could off of everything and had to throw some plants out, very difficult stuff to clean up! I'm very happy that everything is all nice and clean looking now, however there are still very small filaments of hair algae remaining, almost too small to remove by hand so my plan is to employ a cleanup crew. I need some advice on what would be suitable
 
I have a 125L Fluval, the current inhabitants are:
 
4 male guppies
7 cardinal tetras
2 corys (buying more, unfortunately lost a few recently but thats another story. Assassin snails, horrible things!)
 
I would like to add some shrimp, probably amano as I've heard they eat hair algae, although I love the look of cherry shrimp, and a pleco, but I have no idea if there is a small enough breed for me? How many amano/cherrys would be good for me? And do they need any specialist care?
 
Thanks, and sorry for the barrage of questions! Its good to be back!

 

[nic1]

Hey, I'm in the sAme boat, I bought two nerite snails and they are doing a pretty good job! The horned nerite are small and light enough to sit on leaves and not fall off, they are also impossible to breed in the freshwater aquarium which is good! But they do leave eggs everywhere that disappear after a day thanks to the fish.
I don't really know anything about shrimp but I can vouch for the nerite snails.

 

[NeonTetra97]

Ahh that sounds good! So they eat hair algae? And the fact they don't breed is good, must say I would like a pleco but im pretty sure there isn't one small enough

 

[nic1]

How about the bristle nose plec? I think they stay quite small.... Around 5-6 inches, they are a peaceful community fish also, I've never had one but my brother does and he says he does a fantastic job at cleaning, he hasn't used his magnet once since getting him

Yeah the nerite snail, I do love them and they are quite pretty too, my two ate the black hair algae once all the green hair algae was gone, now I have to supplement with algae wafers

 

[NeonTetra97]

Okay, thanks I will be looking at them this weekend just googled nerite snail, they look nice, they have a striped shell?

 

[nic1]

Some do, mine are burnt orange with black spots, the smaller ones have horns/spikes growing out of their shell, there's a variety of colours which makes your aquarium look more interesting.

 

[NeonTetra97]

Wow, do you have a pic? I would love to see them! No worries if you don't 

 

[nic1]

They are screen shots taken from a video... The lights are off at the moment so if you still want to see a clearer picture I can take one in the morning, these pictures don't really do them justice
You can also see the area on my bog wood where the snail has been cleaning, he's was only on that for about a day before he cleared it.
If you get some I recommend that you get some cutle bone to stick in the water, it's good for their shells, I live in a soft water area and they really need hard water for the mineral content to keep their shells nice and hard.

 

[NeonTetra97]

They do look nice! Hopefully my LFS has them, are they hard to find? And I have hard water so no problems there

 

[nic1]

Not that hard to find, I got mine from pets at home it was 2 for £5 but make sure you eyeball their tanks for disease before you get them

 

[Zikofski]

i can also vouch for nerite snails, along with plecos this little post may be interesting to you but yes BN pleco stay small and are wonderful mine didn't do to much cleaning ask kept him well fed they do better if u feed it less obviously with shrimp, i don't know amano but u could probably get 1000 cherry shrimp in that tank i think a general rule of thump for cherry shrimp is something like 10 per 1l of water i had 5 cherries in a 5L tank and i ended up with about 30 after a month  
 
not much difference with pleco and cherry shrimp but they need specific foods, and plecos require some hiding spaces like plants, wood or a cave, and shrimp seem to like moss  

 

[NeonTetra97]

Thanks for the advice everyone! I went to LFS today, no nerite snails, so I picked myself up 3 lovely BN plecos, love watching them climbing over the driftwood. Does the breeding of the cherry shrimp not become problematic? With nothing to control their numbers surely they'd take over :s one thing I saw today that was very interesting was the orange rabbit snail, a vivid orange body, might have to get one next week also no luck with amanos, none in stock atm but there was orange, blue (not sure of name?) and cherry shrimps, all looked lovely! I like to add fish slowly so I will be getting either snails or shrimp next week!  

 

[Arcticfox1977]

Would assassin snails attack nerite snails??

Also, do you have live plants?
Do you fert them or adding co2?

I have hair algae. It was getting out of control until I read on here. Its down to a lack of ferts or co2. I had to start double dosing my ei ferts and liquid co2. Now it doesn't grow as quick and I'm not constantly cutting/cleaning it out of my tank.

 

[BLACK DDOG]

They are screen shots taken from a video... The lights are off at the moment so if you still want to see a clearer picture I can take one in the morning, these pictures don't really do them justice

You can also see the area on my bog wood where the snail has been cleaning, he's was only on that for about a day before he cleared it.
If you get some I recommend that you get some cutle bone to stick in the water, it's good for their shells, I live in a soft water area and they really need hard water for the mineral content to keep their shells nice and hard.

I also live in a very soft water area, on the edge of Exmoor,our water comes from a bore hole up on the moor, I'll have to take a trip down to the beach at low tide and collect some cuttle bone.
I have 3 almano shrimps and one lonely cherry red, local shop doesn't stock any form of shrimps, nearest good store is in Taunton 50 mile 3 hour round trip by bus.

 

[NeonTetra97]

Would assassin snails attack nerite snails??

Also, do you have live plants?
Do you fert them or adding co2?

I have hair algae. It was getting out of control until I read on here. Its down to a lack of ferts or co2. I had to start double dosing my ei ferts and liquid co2. Now it doesn't grow as quick and I'm not constantly cutting/cleaning it out of my tank.

Hi, I do have live plants I would say moderat to heavily planted and I do dose weekly ferts but no liquid or gas CO2, so you recommend that I should dose more? And also i'm not sure how the assassin snails would act towards larger snails, I've taken out most of the assassins as they began to breed rapidly, becoming a problem themselves. The only remaining ones are tiny, so I assume they'd not be able to take down a larger snail? Thanks for the reply
BLACK DDOG, I live in a hard water area so I am lucky when it comes to keeping invertebrates but it is somewhat limiting the fish I can keep, I think this is why I've had two snail population outbursts, one pest snail explosion and then a subsequent assassin snail explosion even though they are supposed slow breeders. I also find it very hard to locate shrimp from local suppliers I trust, I tend to avoid large chain stores