CleanUp Crew

[surjer]

What is a good cleanup crew for a 20gal freshwater setup? Currently I have 1 small pleco but I want some other cool stuff! lol - anything out of the norm I could add? Like saltwater tanks have all kinds of cool stuff you can have for cleanup crews but I dont know to much about fw..

TIA

Jerry

 

[gheitman]

Some cories always make a nice addition. You want to get a school of five or more for them to be completely happy though. There are a number of different species available at your LFS.

 

[ksfishguy]

I vote for corycats as well. How about a rainbow shark, mine goes over everything looking for food.

 

[JohnPaul]

Not positive but I think a 20g might not be large enough for a rainbow shark. I vote corys as well, they are cute little buggers.

Some ghost shrimp (or similar shrimp) would also be a nice addition.

 

[ksfishguy]

20g would be too small, I should read more closely

 

[sith j]

i like the albino cories, my albino's seem to be a little more active. i also have a school of peppered cories and one upside down catfish so when new people come over they think i have a drunk cory. also add a couple of otto cats they will take care of any diatoms if you have any

 

[Swimmer32]

How many albino's do you have in you tank sith?

Is this in your 75g tank?

 

[flip_lx]

is it planted and/or what type of substrate? you could get an oto catfish or 3 and or some MTS

 

[Tostada]

I love my panda corys, but I'm not sure how effective they are at actual cleanup. They don't seem to really eat all that much.

I have a mystery snail that's only about 1.5" across and he's an absolute cleanup machine. He totally "cleaned up" a 1.5" shrimp by himself in an afternoon. I gave my fish too many peas and 4 were just sitting in the corner of his tank and he ate all of them in about an hour.

And speaking of shrimp, they are really good scavengers, too. They'll eat anything, and they don't waste any time finding stuff that hits the bottom of the tank.

Of course, that really depends what you mean by clean up. Hopefully you're not planning on losing a lot of fish and having somebody there to eat them. If you're just talking about algae, ottos are great algae eaters.

Cories are mostly going to root around in the gravel, dust your plants, and genrally try to be adorable.

 

[Burks]

Have you considered the possibility of Kuhli Loaches? I have two (my third just died) in my 10g and they do a pretty good job at keeping the bottom rather clean. There's the black and striped variety. Striped is hard to find for some people.

 

[punky]

I had kuhli loaches but some died too. Is it that difficult for them to survive?

 

[surjer]

I like the idea of shrimp but I would be worried that other fish would eat them...

 

[JohnPaul]

Most fish that would fit in a 20g community tank would be fine with ghost shrimp, as long as you didn't get them particularly small. I've kept ghosts with fish up to 3.5" killifish and not had any losses (at least that I am aware of!) This is the same killie, btw, that ate my entire school of 14 neon tetras. But that's another story... 8O

 

[joannde]

I vote for both cories AND snails They both so entertaining and really do a great job of getting to anything the fish don't eat. I RARELY see the panda cories actually eat anything - but I think that's because they get all the teeny stuff that's just too hard to see. The snails are a hoot too - in fact today one wrapped himself around 1/2 a sinking algae wafer as if he were saying "GO GO GO ... MINE MINE MINE !".
I have 3 panda cories and 1 skunk cory (looks pretty much the same except he has a black stripe running down his back) and they all play together. I'm hoping to get 8 or 10 - just waiting for the LFS next shipment.
And I wouldn't trade my mystery snails for all the tea in the world .... they're not boring at all ! Lots of fun to watch.

 

[Guest]

http://www.azgardens.com/algaesquad.php <-------- check this out. seriously.

also a big fan of the very expensive bee shrimp varieties, spixi snails, cory cats, and various other unique shrimp varieties.

 

[sith j]

i have three albino cories in my 75 and two peppered