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Permalink Reply by Hmoobthor on October 11, 2011 at 4:31pm

SAE are recommend in large tank as they CAN reach 6" but usually 4" max..  My latest video show them.

 

Some small algae eating fish are:

Amano shrimp, red cherry shrimp, otos catfish (very sensitive fish), and my favor Albino bristle nose pleco.

Most of this can go into small to to medium size aquarium.

 

If your into snail. there is MTS.

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Permalink Reply by Nick T. on October 11, 2011 at 4:40pm

The problem is I have seen no Bristlenose plecs around here and I dont want the shrimp to be killed and eaten by something like a leaf fish or golden redtailed tinfoil barb

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Permalink Reply by Hmoobthor on October 11, 2011 at 7:12pm

petco usually have them in stock all the time..make sure u get a healthy one as some of them are starve to the point of death after couple days in your tank.

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Permalink Reply by 2apes2gp667wr on October 11, 2011 at 8:17pm

To me its gotta be oto cats. My SAE got big enough where he needed to eat flakes & other food and then didn't wanna eat algae anymore. Otos don't have that problem. The one thing about SAEs though is that they eat BBA, which not much else does. Otos are just nonstop eaters. A school can really wipe out some algae. The more important point is to eliminate the cause of the algae instead of just adding more & more algae eaters. Treat the sickness not the symptom.

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Permalink Reply by Michael on October 12, 2011 at 2:08pm

5BodyBlade made a great commnt about stopping the cause of algae rarther than buying fish to help you. I reccomand otos any how. I left my tank to build up algae so i can get 5 otos and they would have enough food. I left the tank with algae for 3 months and the 5 otos demolished the 3 month worth of algae in one day. I feed em Zucchini andlgae wafers now.

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Permalink Reply by 2apes2gp667wr on October 12, 2011 at 3:17pm

That's not to say that algae eaters are not vital to tank maintenance.  Even the most high tech, high price, flawless tanks have otos and SAE.  A lot of people just wanna throw algae eaters in and think that is the fix.

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Permalink Reply by Nick T. on October 12, 2011 at 5:15pm

thanks for all the comments! I returned my too big pleco today and decided on a clown pleco,(only wanted one algae eater) He looks real cool and the guy said they would do just as good a job as my old highfin (too big pleco), just wanted your opinions, did I make a mistake?

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Permalink Reply by Hmoobthor on October 12, 2011 at 7:54pm

yes..clown are not good algae eater

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Permalink Reply by Michael on October 13, 2011 at 1:49pm

Go with a Bristlenose plec if you want a single fish. They're not bad at all i my opinion.

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