What's all this talk of ... ??

[Grant R]

' Algae Eaters ' and ' Clean Up Crew's ' ?

I'm frankly well confused !!

I don't actually have any algae of any sort in my tank, is this good / bad / worrying ??

Please enlighten me !!

[hisc1ay]

I may be wrong, but if you don't have plants, you can't get algae. So do you have plants? If not, that may be why. I've had my tank up for a month without plants, and no algae. I wonder what my plecostomus (sp?) is sucking off of the wall though...

-j

Grant,

At your stage you may well not have any algae yet, but you will probably at least get some somewhere along the line. For freshwater, there are many species of algae eaters that do just that-- eat algae. There are many types, some don't do a very good job and some are excellent. Geez, there are so many that come to mind, I don't really have time to list them.

In addition to algae eating fish, others that fall into the "clean-up crew" category, include corydorus catfish, various fw shrimps, and also snails.

Hopefuuly we help you out here a good bit, but in this case a good fw fish encyclopedia would help you out a lot. A personal aquarium library is key in this hobby. Have you purchased any books yet?

[Grant R]

Thanks People.
I didn't realise that live plants caused algae, I have artificial, so that would be why then !!
With regards to books, I've been hunting just about everywhere, but my local town centre book shops are pants, so am ordering a couple online on Thurday.

[targaboy78]

Hey Grant,

I didn't realise that live plants caused algae

Not that I am an expert (or anything even close) but I just wanted to mention that LIGHT is more of a factor than live plants.

If you leave your tank light on more than 12 hours/day or your tank gets some direct sunlight, you will soon have algae.

I left my sports water bottle on my desk at work over my vacation (with the blinds open) and I came back to green fuzz on the bottom of my bottle. Ewwww. I'm glad I wash it everyday, otherwise I may not have noticed.

Actually, if you water circulates well, you will have less algae problems also.

Just my experience...