Time To Add Some Algae Eating Fish?

[FlyingFish78]

I've had my aquarium for over 8 weeks and it's now fully cycled. Unfortunately in the past few weeks algae has started to grow all around the tank at an ever increasing rate. The lights are on for only 9 hours a day and there are now quite a few plants in there which should help to some extent in the prevention of algae.

To cut a long-story-short I've decided to give the 8 zebra danios to another fishkeeper in order to make room for some more Cardinal Tetras. Basically, once the danios are gone there will be room for about 10 more Cardinals; making a total of 20.

It occurred to me that instead of getting 10 Cardinals I could get, say, 5 Cardinals and some algae eaters. I'm just curious to find out which fish would be best for my tank.

For the record I have a planted Fluval 240 litre and the water parameters are as follows:

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
PH - 0
Hardness - Very hard.

Thanks for any advice. BTW I plan on collecting the new fish tomorrow.

FF78

 

[sawickib]

If its not hairy algae you could get like 4-5 oto cats, or a BN pleco
Or maybe some amano shrimp

 

[chrisrm]

if your pH is 0 your fish are living in hydrochloric acid, which i very much doubt!!

 

[sawickib]

if your pH is 0 your fish are living in hydrochloric acid, which i very much doubt!!

Haha just noticed that!

 

[Lawalk]

I've had good luck with BN plecos.  They do a great job with the algae, and they come in some cool varieties. I like their personalities.  Warning though, I did once have a male that was pretty aggressive toward everyoe else.  Once, as a kid someone told me you could use certain snails.  I tried one, but I swear the algae grew faster than the snail could slime its way over to it. My niece uses otos, but I think you'd need a lot of them to do much in a tank your size.  Which, maybe you'd like since you have a lot of schooling fish already.

 

[sawickib]

You could also do quite a bit of nerite snails, they do a great job and dont eat plants, otos are social fish and prefer higher numbers of at least 4

 

[BerryAttack]

adding in a fish that eats algae wont solve your issue.. you need to find what is causing the issue and fix it.
you can blackout your tank for 3 days which will kill off the algae.. you are most likely having too much light for the tank, and feeding to much which wasn't eaten by the fish is allowing the algae to grow... cut of your feeding for a week (fish will be fine don't worry) do a 90% water change and when doing that removed/scrape w/e the algae from glass/plants etc as best you can, then cut your lighting back to 5 hours... after the week feed fish once (don't give huge amount of food) every other day and you should have fixed the issue..
if you at the end of all that still have small amount of algae and want to add a fish in the get a bristle nose pleco, they clean everything very well. otos usually starve in a non-mature tank.. and need tons of certain types of algae.. but save your money and go with the pleco.

 

[FlyingFish78]

if your pH is 0 your fish are living in hydrochloric acid, which i very much doubt!!

  

But the 17 year old in the LFS said to use hydroch...

Haha seriously I was tired when I posted that last night. In actual fact the PH is 7.8. It would be 8.1 but the bogwood reduces it a little.

adding in a fish that eats algae wont solve your issue.. you need to find what is causing the issue and fix it.
you can blackout your tank for 3 days which will kill off the algae.. you are most likely having too much light for the tank, and feeding to much which wasn't eaten by the fish is allowing the algae to grow... cut of your feeding for a week (fish will be fine don't worry) do a 90% water change and when doing that removed/scrape w/e the algae from glass/plants etc as best you can, then cut your lighting back to 5 hours... after the week feed fish once (don't give huge amount of food) every other day and you should have fixed the issue..
if you at the end of all that still have small amount of algae and want to add a fish in the get a bristle nose pleco, they clean everything very well. otos usually starve in a non-mature tank.. and need tons of certain types of algae.. but save your money and go with the pleco.

Doesn't cutting off the feeding for a week thereby also cut off the ammonia and cause good bacteria to die? FYI my lighting is on for 9hrs because the bulbs are T8s (not the best for plants) and I want to make sure they get enough light.

BTW: Plecos? No thanks. They look creepy and also grow huge. I don't want one of them ugly things clinging to the side of my tank.

 

[Rak9378]

BTW: Plecos? No thanks. They look creepy and also grow huge. I don't want one of them ugly things clinging to the side of my tank.

Bristlenose Plecos don't grow huge. Fully grown they are about 5" give or take. As for ugly well I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Besides being good algae eaters I happen to think they have a ton of character and are a lot of fun to watch.

How many of your fish smile at you??

 

[coolie]

Even Black Mollies eat algae by pecking it from the sides of the tank. I agree to bring your lighting period down by at least an hour or so.

 

[FlyingFish78]

Even Black Mollies eat algae by pecking it from the sides of the tank. I agree to bring your lighting period down by at least an hour or so.

 
OK will do. I'll reduce it to 8 hours.
 
Update: Today I went and added 10 Neon Tetras. They've settled in nicely and are schooling with the Cardinals

 

[BerryAttack]

by cutting the feeding you do not stop the good bacteria and or kill it.. it just stop the waste from being produced and excess nutrients from going to the algae.
make sure you do a water change for uping the fish in the tank.

 

[Lawalk]

I get what you're saying about plecos not being the most attractive fish you could buy, but I do agree with Rak as far as the personalities of the Bristlenose variety. Once upon a time I had a rubber lipped pleco that was boring and ugly.  He also didn't do as good a job with the algae as the BN.  Those are the species I've had the most experience with, but if you're willing to spend a little more there are other varieties that are actually quite attractive and don't get too huge.  Do a little more research before you discount all plecos

If you're really dead set on not getting a pleco of any kind, you could go with a bunch of otos... And adjust the lights and feeding as has already been suggested.
 
For Example:
Zebra Pleco (this one is very pricey, but there are other varieties)
Max Size:  3.5 Inches
View attachment 73639

 

[sawickib]

L204 and L169 are other small species, but they are a wood chewing species, and the zebra pleco isnt much of a vegetarian at all and wont touch the algae, they are mostly carnivorous.

 

[Lawalk]

Looks like you're right, they don't.  I was just looking for attractive plecos and the first couple of sites I looked at reported them as algae eaters.  That's my bad for not researching more carefully.  I'll just stick to recommending the exquisitely hideous BN pleco then, and encourage serious research on other species before purchasing them.