Yeah, the shipment didn't come in at the LFS so I have to wait. I'm getting horned and onion snails.
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Please Recommend an Algae Eater
- Thread starter Razor7Music
- Start date
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The conventional wisdom I've always heard was...pleco's will produce more waste...then the positive effects of their eating algae. Thus...pleco's produce more waste...than problems that they solve or partially solve.
If you have an algae problem...get the tank out of the sunlight!
If you have an algae problem...get the tank out of the sunlight!
+1 best algae fighter I have ever seen. These things are like power buffers for tanks. And you can get some pretty cool looking ones.
Yeah, this is something that I read about for trumpet snails too. I keep my water clean and have a filter that turns the water around really well.The conventional wisdom I've always heard was...pleco's will produce more waste...then the positive effects of their eating algae. Thus...pleco's produce more waste...than problems that they solve or partially solve.
If you have an algae problem...get the tank out of the sunlight!
My challenge is tha I have bright led lights and live plants. So, I'm getting more algae than I really want to deal with.
Thanks for the heads up.
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Waiting for the shipment to come in.
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In my opinion trumpets are too prolific. They worked great in my African cichlid tank cleaning stuck food and stirring the sand but they reproduce like crazy. The nerites don't breed in fresh water I believe. My only problem is that the females lay these very sticky large white eggs. When I figure out which ones lay. I remove them. Asides from that, 2👍.
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You may already have the solution - Synodontis petricola/lucipinnis.
I know that many people don't believe that this species of cat eats algae, but I am not the only person that disagrees with that belief. Sidguppy is a highly respected poster on various catfish forums, and you can read below what he states regarding petricola and algae.
https://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11446
I have similar experiences with several Syno-species and found out by accident that it's for example Synodontis petricola (and allies) wich is most suitable for the Tropheus-community.
this because this species obviously likes lots and lots of algae....they truly graze the rocks! Once I found (before I had aufwuchseaters in there) typical scrape-markings on al my rocks. it took some serious observing before I found out who was the culprit. turned out it was my very first -and single at that time- 1" petricola-baby (they only had 1 and I HAD to buy it). I gave him some mates later on, of course.
I never saw any Riftlake-Syno graze before I kept petricola.
I knew about the algae-scraping habits of pleurops and contractus (that last one gives any Ancistrus a run for the money!), but didn't expect petricola's to do the same.
according to literature, this should be a snaileater; wich I found that the true polli does very well indeed.
My own experience mirrors his. I recently purchased a group of 8 wild adult S. lucipinnis, and in only a few days the established 125 gallon that they were placed in was stripped of all traces of algae. Rocks, glass, intake tubes, all cleaned up as well as any bristlenose pleco that I have ever owned.
Also, in the following paper on Synodontis, the authors state the following about the diet of S. petricola.
TAXONOMIC REVISION OF LAKE TANGANYIKAN SYNODONTIS (SILURIFORMES: MOCHOKIDAE)
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/files/9913/9447/0142/bulletin-vol46no4lores.pdf
So while juvenile petricola/lucipinnis may ignore algae, once they mature and reach adult size, they most definitely become very good at algae control in the aquarium.
