Anything clean as well as a bristlenose pleco?

[swifty]

I had a male BN for 5 months that kept my tank spotless. Had to remove him because he started getting territorial. Put in a female, which died from ich after I added a fish that was part of a bad shipment from LFS. I was pretty pissed, because she had great spots, and cleaned the tank in 48 hours. I added another female, near 3.5", and it ate algae off the rocks, but nowhere else. She died suddenly the other day. No warnings given, she'd much on driftwood when I'd see her, and one day when I came home from work she was upside down on the bottom of the tank.

So, I may just try another female, or maybe 2 females this time, or just try my luck with another male (even though I don't like the bristles).

That brings me to my question. Other than snails, chinese algae eaters, or otocinclus, are there other types of small plecos or some other fish that eat algae?

 

[bettaowner]

Chinese algae eaters are not a good option. Depending on the tank size, whiptail cats could work

 

[Goldfish loach boy]

Nerite snails eat algae, why not ottos? They are very good at it

 

[Oohitsae]

There are other types of ancistrius (sp) species out there that don't grow bristles and stay small that you could try. All ancistrius stay pretty small and are pretty good algae eaters, read their profiles and see which you like, some eat more algae than others which is also something you'll have to look into.
Other than what you've already named the options are really only shrimp. Some livebearers will pick at algae too but won't eat it as a prime food source.

 

[swifty]

Wow, I found a bunch of ancistrus on this site: The genus Ancistrus

I may have to search online because I've never seen any of those at my LFS, there is some very nice looking ones!

 

[Oohitsae]

Wow, I found a bunch of ancistrus on this site: The genus Ancistrus

I may have to search online because I've never seen any of those at my LFS, there is some very nice looking ones!

Searching online is probably a good thing, some are more rare than others so it depends on the amount of money you want to spend and where you would like to buy but there are some very cool specie out there. I've wanted a gold nugget, inspector, or starlight or white seam for years.

 

[CalebZachary]

Clown Pleco.