Loach

[TommySide]

I've been advised loaches help with Algae, so i was going to get 1/2. what breed should i get? i have guppies, neon tetras and purple emperor tetras.

thanks

 

[Davo86]

It would be better to find out why you are having the algae problems or even what type of algae it is, most algae eaters will only eat one type?

how long is the light left on for? are there live plants in the tank?
what are the water parameters
whats the circulation, aeration like in the tank?

Tanksize would also be important to know?

Brisltenose plecs or a group of ottocinclus would be your best bet,

 

[waterdrop]

I've been advised loaches help with Algae, so i was going to get 1/2. what breed should i get? i have guppies, neon tetras and purple emperor tetras.

thanks

I've generaly heard that an entire loach helps more than a half a loach

Agree with Davo that you might want to have a discussion of your algae situation and see if you can improve it. Virtually everyone gets algae at some point to a certain extent and one bit of advice I read is to continue frequent gravel cleans (after cleaning algae from glass and tank objects) and remove badly infected plant leaves.

I've been trying to learn from the plant forum guys myself but its really hard. If I'm getting my lessons right, it helps right from the start to have a larger number of plants to outcomplete with the algae for resources. Resources are light, CO2, macronutrient ferts. and micronutrient ferts. (they could no doubt describe this better!) When one or more of these resources is used up or significantly depleted by the plant population, the plants reduce their processes and extra amounts of the other resources are left available. One or more of the many (thousands of?) algae species will be optimized to grow under these less than ideal conditions.

Here comes the interesting part: the planted forum folks say that it often takes some sort of "trigger" to get the algae started, when conditions are ripe, like we've just described. Of course, too much light (too many lumens compared to your other resources, lights on too long, etc.) are things we all understand pretty instinctively. Very common, however is the trigger of CO2 variations. Those of us that have tanks where we don't specifically control CO2 are subject to greater variations in CO2, not to mention probably not having enough CO2. Another really common algae trigger is little variations in ammonia level, often caused by a gravel clean, even in a tank that doesn't actually test out to have ammonia either before or after the gravel clean. (Gee, that statement -really- causes conflict in maintenance recommendations, argh!)

Anyway, this is my attempt to partially summarize some of the cool work I think our plant folks have been doing and my description is probably wrong (since I'm not one of the ones who truly understands it yet, ha!) but maybe it will help someone to delve in a little deeper in the planted section and see what our members over there have to say.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[TommySide]

Thanks guys.

Looks like i need to get my brain working then. I'll go home tonight and do a water test (at work at the moment) and post results.

my tank is a 30l BiOrb. I have no live plants (hope to sort this weekend). the light is left on about 4 hours (on daylight, and the rest moonlight setting).

what do you mean by circulation/aeriation?

also, thanks for the tip on getting a whole 1!

thanks again

 

[The-Wolf]

loaches do not eat algea

 

[waterdrop]

loaches do not eat algea

Hey Wolf,

Do specific species of those fish that do eat algae tend to eat only specific types of algae (eg. are there any generalizations about any combinations of fish/algae that you've found to be true?) Seems like otos really do eat a certain amount of algae but I wouldn't know what the limitations were, like what types of algae they might eat or actually whether that constitutes 100% of their diet for that matter.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[TommySide]

My readings were as follows:

Nitrate - 25 (this seems high to me, although i dont really know where it should be)
Nitrite - 0
KH - 6(little o thing)d (i read somewhere this should be between 3-10)
pH - 8.0

is there anything there that would suggest algae issues?

cheers

 

[loachman]

The only loaches that will help with algae at all are the hillstream varieties. However, they require cooler water and very high flow rates for long-term success. The flow rates they require will blow guppies all over the place like a mobile home in a tornado.

Clown loaches, kuhli loaches, skunk loaches, yoyo loaches, or any other common loach will NOT eat algae.

If they're talking about sucking loaches, aka chinese algae eaters (the first common name is a misnomer, they're not true loaches)...they stink for algae eating in community aquariums. Ottos, bristlenose plecs, siamese algae eaters (be careful with LFS mislabeling), and american flag fish are better.

 

[The-Wolf]

Seems like otos really do eat a certain amount of algae

that is because otos are catfish