Clean-up crew?

[ferco]

hi there, recenlty moved onto Brackish water with 3 3inch archer fish in my Rio 180, and i was wondering if anyone could give me the name of a good cleaner fish that can cope with bracksih water? when i say cleaner fish, i mean like a pleco (but i think they are only frechwater, though im sure ive herd of a saltwater...) or shrimp, also would full marine shrimp live in brackish, im assuming not, but i jsut want to check. Any kind of shrimp really, to keep ontop of the waste, with the filter obviusly.
thanks very much for your time.

 

[Newt]

There are really no "clean up" fish for brackish.

MTS, green, tiger, and horned nerites are some snails that do good jobs. The MTS will take care of the substrate and the nerites are great algae eaters.

There is also a ghost shrimp that thrives in brackish, they are sold as feeders. The ones that work in brackish have green eggs, that's the only way I can tell the brackish from the freshwater. These shrimp do not eat algae, but will eat any let over food, sort of like the MTS.

 

[arlo]

whats a MTS?

 

[messiner]

i have heard of people sucessfully acclimating plecos to brackish

 

[P3R3]

Get used to the fact that in brackish tanks it is your own responsiblity to do the clean up. Olive Nerite Snails are really the only thing you can use in the tank, but the effectiveness is questionable. Its cruel to throw a freshwater fish such as a pleco into brackish despite what other may claim. Plus, plecos make more mess then they clean up.

 

[ferco]

Get used to the fact that in brackish tanks it is your own responsiblity to do the clean up. Olive Nerite Snails are really the only thing you can use in the tank, but the effectiveness is questionable. Its cruel to throw a freshwater fish such as a pleco into brackish despite what other may claim. Plus, plecos make more mess then they clean up.

lol, i'd agree with that, i used to keep a large common pleco, and he really didn't seem to do too much lol, but i totally agree with it being wrong to put a freshwater fish into a brackish tank, it's just cruel really; that's why i started this post, to try and find something that may halp clean my brackish tank. lol, so far i have one breed of snail, though i have been told that some snails can be clowly adapted to brackish, but i don't think i'll try.. also my archers love shrimp... lol thanks everyone for all the help

 

[guppy]

Since you have jaculatrix archers any shrimp will end up munched, they get 8-12" as adults.
There are several algae and detritus eaters that do well in brackish tanks (in the tilapia group) but most get too large.
Blackchin tilapia (Sarotherodon melanotheron) @ 11", and wami tilapia (Geochromis urolepis honorum) @ 10" are good examples of brackish tilapia that are almost small enough while Zillis and redbreast tilapia are way to big.
The Sabaki tilapia (Oreochromis spilarus spilarus) @ 8" max, would be great if you can find it (at least 3/4 of it's diet is filamentous algae, diatom film, and detritus) this pic is by DeProost. The larger pic is by Albering
There are also several labeos good for algae that get to large and a few puntius species that are good algae and detritus eaters that live in brackish but most are too small, one that might work is the Scarlet Banded Barb (Puntius amphibius) that is usually around 6" but maxs out at 8".

 

[arlo]

thankS! thats some dam good information.

 

[guppy]

I was walking today and it struck me that I forgot to mention the Callichthys callichtys catfish. it is an omnivore and a good scavenger though not an algae scraper, it is about as close to bulletproof as a fish can get and actually seems to prefer brackishwater but can adapt from almost full seawater to FW and tolerates almost any conditions, it has even been reported living in sewage settling ponds. It gets to about 7" and is long lived though slow growing. the pic is from scotcat.

 

[P3R3]

Where would you find one of those. I have NEVER seen one around here before!

Also whats a common name usually associated with it?