Green Spot Algae eater

[Jarred Darque]

I have an old planted tank that has been neglected for some time while being used as a quarantine tank....anyways, the sides of the tank are covered in green spot algae so thick I cannot see into the tank through the glass.

So does anyone know a fish for a 10 gallon tank that will clean green spot algae. Or snails? I have 3 amano shrimp in there and they have made no differance that I can tell in the last 3 or 4 months....I dont want to have to have like 50 of them to do the job.

I was thinking bristlenose pleco perhaps?

BTW the tanks only inhabitants will be german rams and the shrimp plus whatever is int here to clean algae.

pond snails and MTSs are out of the quistion, as teh ram will eat them, but he leaves larger snails, like apples, alone

 

[hc8719]

...i'd reccomend just wiping the tank down, im not going to reccomend just yet, pleco's or an algae eater (the fish not related to plecos, they dont really care for algae anyway unless your not feeding them enough flakes) , mainly because im afraid of the stagnant water. snails from petsmart, run at $1.49-$1.79, they eat a butt load, but they procreate like rats if they mate, but maybe you want 2000 snails.

only one force on earth on earth can wipe out a snail colony, my 10" 10yr old goldfish,(yes they do live more than a week) which you could almost see the nitrates and amonia seeping from his body.

otherwise a snail can live through most amonia, nitrate, and most posoin levels...so go for it

 

[joannde]

Actually, Mystery Snails lay pink eggs above the water line - fairly easy to see and control.

I also don't agree that snails can live with bad water - I was actually going to create a post earlier today called "Snails as a tank barometer" but didn't get a chance to do it. I've noticed that my mystery snails spend more time just sitting on the bottom and are not nearly as active once my nitrates go above 10ppm. With ammonia or nitrites you'll just never see them (except for their shells) - they close up their doors and won't come out until conditions improve.

As for snails and green algae, I honestly don't know the effectiveness - what I do know is that I have 12 1" mystery snails and have never seen a fleck of algae (diatoms yes, algae no) but since the snails have been in the tank from nearly the start I can't honestly say if the algae ever existed.

 

[tropicfishman]

I'd go with the snails

 

[IceH2O]

Not many algae eating fish that would fit in a 10 gallon tank. I'm surprised that 2 Rams will fit in there comfortably but I haven't researched them to see if I'm right or not.

Your best bet as to not to add to the bioload is one of those magnetic algae scrubbers. I use one in my pred tank, for obvious reasons, and it works like a charm.

 

[lovemybarbs]

snails are tough and fun to watch if you don't get the kind that goes crazy on you. Try that, they're cheap and tough.

 

[Devilishturtles]

Your best bet as to not to add to the bioload is one of those magnetic algae scrubbers.

Ditto. Nothing I've tried beats green spot algae like a razor or magnetic scraper. And get a larger magnetic scraper instead of a smaller one. I've had the small ones that don't even put a ding in it, and wondered why on earth people could get their magnetic scrapers to work.

 

[hc8719]

i dont have any ecperience with mystery snails joande, but the ugly but big snails i had lived through alot.

i recently found a stowaway on a live plant i purchased, he doesnt look like the breeds petsmart has, (just ugly brown)

thought i'd raise him on algae tablets until he's big enough not get eatten, and replace the ghost shrimp with him so i can finally get a black ghost knife

(the small bgk im aiming for, im told, like to rip ghost shrimps legs off)