Suitable Algae Eating Fish

[drobbyb]

I wanted to ask you, the members, what kind of algae eaters are suitable. CAE can be nasty, otto's are too small and get eaten, SAE are rare around these parts, my bn pleco is lazy. What other options are there?

Should I just keep replacing CAE once they hit 3 inches? At least I know they will eat algae.

 

[Honeythorn]

Well how bad is the algae? If it's only on the glass or ornaments you can just scrape it off with an old credit card when you do water changes, and scrub any ornaments that are covered. Far easier than to keep replacing fish or ending up with something unsuitable.

 

[lilfishie]

how big is the tank, Bristlenose Plecos are great algae eaters

 

[clos]

plecos get lazy after a while

 

[lilfishie]

i have never had that problem with BNs, my 8 year old pair till loved there algae

 

[drobbyb]

72 gallons. I already have a bn pleco but he dosen't eat algae. I used to have a CAE and the tank was spotless. They just get nasty after a while.

 

[mixmaster jay]

mine mainly come out at night . ive never had a probblem with my bn's the male only gets nasty when he wants to mate then he drags the female to his preffered cave they do the deed and thats about it then unless anything gets too close to the eggs then my male get mardi lol

 

[drobbyb]

Honeythorn: It's not terrible but it's hard to scrape off. I have one of those mag floats that I use to clean the glass. It takes a fair amount of scrubbing, but it does come off.

The problem isn't cleaning it off the glass. All my decorations have it all over them. I have to bleach them to clean off the algae. I do 50% waterchanges/gravel vacuum weekly. In this time it will have covered the plants. It is impossible to remove the algae from the anubias leaves.

 

[mixmaster jay]

an inline uv might help a bit keeping the water born spores down and slow the growth of it down. i dont have a problem with algae with my uv on my 825 litre tank

 

[lilfishie]

do you have any live plants in the tank? if not they might help by taking the excess nutrients, alternatively cut down your feeding and lighting see if that helps

 

[drobbyb]

do you have any live plants in the tank? if not they might help by taking the excess nutrients, alternatively cut down your feeding and lighting see if that helps

I have anubias in the tank currently. I have cut down on feeding to every other day. I also perform 50% waterchanges weekly. I suppose cutting the light to 50% would be ok. That drops me to .4 watts per gallon.

Keep the suggestions coming!

 

[Syphoniera]

Sorry, I'm afraid I'm dragging the Nerites out again - unless the tiny infertile eggs bother you more than the algae, and you would need a fair number for such a big (to me anyway, you lucky devil) tank.
But boy, they're just algae-eating fools...