Gar Friendly Algae Eaters

[Cloudk]

Hi. So. Planning new tank. Going to have a FL gar in it. Since cleaning algae off a 300gal tank with tile would take years, i would like to get an algae eater of somekind. I heard common plecos will eat the slime off gar, so what would another option be? A true vegan pleco, or something i guess... I've had a pleco eat the skin off another pleco, so I've seen the damage plecos can do(though i don't think a pleco could eat off the gars plates) and I would rather my $40 gar wasn't killed by my $3 pleco... Anyway. Tankmate suggestions would be appreciated. Preferably from personal experinces. Thank you

 

[administrator]

I have 2 common plecos with 2 Fl gars in a tank a little bit smaller than yours. They are all doing fine. I did have an issue when I had one of the gars in a small QT tank with another common pleco and was out of town for a few days. They went without food while I was out and there was some damage to the gar which healed up in 2 - 3 weeks after I started to feed them regularly again.

 

[MonsterMinis]

I kept a royal w/ my gar for awhile and they did good, driftwood for the royal to munch on and veggies ect to give it a proper diet. in exchange he added algae to his list of foods. but atm water changes keeping nitrates low helps control algae a lot.

 

[brown_snake]

I'm not too sure about the gar and pleco combination. My cousin tried that combo for a while, but his gar ended up killing the pleco.