What Bottom Feeder For My Cichlid Tank?

[stelis]

hi,is it safe for me to put a bottom feeder in my cichlid tank? and will it eat
the fish poo and keep the bottom of the tank tidy? any advice will be gratefully
recieved.thanks

 

[MikeO]

Eating fish poo!?

If you have enough filtration then you shouldn't have fish poo anywhere in the tank, unless you have some dead spots in which case you should reconsider your layout.

If you are looking for an L-Number then you need to be careful as most only tolerate soft acidic water, whereas your cichlds should be in hard alkaline water.

A bristlenose is the most commonly used L-Number in these circumstances but there are one or two others that are suitable, but I am not sure what your motivation is behind having one. They wont eat poo as far as I know and if thats why you want one then I would address your filtration / layout first.

 

[HappyGeorge]

No fish will eat the other fish waste, but if you want a bottom feeder then a synodontis multipunctatus would make a good choice. I have 6 in my tank, you will find them discussed briefly in this thread. They come out in 2's and 3's to play in the flow, and they do pick up anything off the bottom the other fish miss and squeeze into small gaps, and of course as they are thrashing around the bottom of the tank they keep stuff moving about on the bottom. They are not the only choice but beware plecs and others that are less feisty than the multis (they will stick up for themselves) I have seen many horror stories of bottom feeders having eyes plucked out and generally being very badly hassled by Cichlids.
As for fish waste on the bottom I wouldn't agree that waste on the bottom is a sign of poor filtration or poor layout especially in a Cichlid tank, I have so many rocks in mine that dead spots are inevitable and would say that if you have a cichlid tank and have a decent amount of rocks then dead spots are inevitable, I have to syphon out poo each week and I have 20 times turnover.

 

[MikeO]

I must be lucky then as I manage with mine..rock coverage over the majority of the base of the tank and built up about 1/3 to 1/2 way in places and I have no dead spots and no build up of waste.

I do have 2 filters and 2 airstones both at opposite ends of the tank so these all go some way to keeping up the flow. I dont see that having to comprimise flow for caves / rocks and vise versa needs to be an issue.

 

[synodontismultipunctatus]

synodontis catfish are all beautiful and nic ei reccomend the smaller ones ... multipunctatus and petricola