A good cleanup crew for polys? (Other then myself haha)

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
B

BuffaloPolypteridae

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 5, 2013
3,011
7
0
Buffalo
I'm looking for some fish that can live well with polys and clean up after them, I am adding devils ivy filtration to lower nitrates, but I would like something that sifts sand and eats algae, but I know plecos can do damage to polys through their slime coat so I don't want to lose my prized poly to a damn pleco haha.

Would you think eartheater cichlids (geophagus) would work with multiple polys? My LFS has them, Balzanis. They can be eaten as of now but I can grow them out and they get about 6 inches, I already have one cleaning up my comm/molly breeder tank. I added oto sucker cats to the poly tank when it was like 4 inches and it ate them all in a week, any larger sucker cats? Do they not suck off the slime coat? When I put the molly feeders in they do some cleaning but not much

Sent from my DROID4 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
 
Flagtails work great in my experience. There are stories of them sucking the slime coat off polys but but it has never happened to me. Kept my glass clean! For sand sifters I would go with larger eartheaters like jurupari. What polys do you have and how big are they?
 
I use cone snails. Great sand sifters! But they will multiply and if not fed enough eat on poly slime. I've never seen any of my snails do any damage to my polys (i have 10). When i see a few start latching on to the polys, I put snails traps in and trap a hundred. Put them in different tanks or give them to friends. Then it takes about 6 months for the snail population to grow back and repeat trapping them. It works really well.

Once the snails got way out of control and i didn't want to wait the few days to trap them. So i borrowed a spotted green puffer from my LFS and put him in the tank for two days. He ate tons of the snails till they were back under control. Once i was done I just gave him back to the store. I like the snail option because it does not significantly add to the bio load.
 
If your looking at eartheaters Jurupari or Atifrons would be a bit bigger and more suitable than Balzini. I'm growing out some delhezi bichirs at the moment and have 10 hoplo cats for a clean up crew, they work well cos their mouths are too small to eat the bichirs food right away but they clean up all the chewed up bits and scraps when the bichirs are full. It really depends what species your poly is though cos good tank mates for a sen will be dinner for an ornate or endli.
 
I have an Ornate, plan on getting one of the palmas complex soon, also have a red hi fin wolf fish. the wolf is about 5-6 inches and the ornate 7 inches. I will try to find some of the other strains of geophagus, I'm not too sure about snails haha I don't like having them in my tank, if there ever are any I scrape em off, I don't like the idea of something potentially taking off its slime coat, I am curious about the flagtail though, and recently came across hillstream loaches (they look like lil stingrays, not in LFS but online so I will be calling around for them) they should make a good cleaner, if not it'll go in my other tank lol.

Thanks for the help and input guys, anymore is appreciated!

Sent from my DROID4 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
 
May have to go with a hoplo if I can find one, not a lot of the others are common around here. The one LFS right up the road usually has a few 4 inch hoplos for like 17$

Sent from my DROID4 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom