Cherry barbs nibbling at my Crypt

[Marconis]

I can't tell if they are eating the healthy leaves or the melted ones. Regardless, they keep stirring up debris in my tank, and I don't want them to destroy my plants.

I just bought 5 of these fish today. Anyone experience this with cherry barbs? The nibbling keeps attracting my cardinal tetras to the plant and they are doing the same now.

*Edit--It actually seems they are eating the hair-like algae on the plants. Is this common behavior?

 

[BigJim]

I wish my cherry barbs would eat hair algae.

 

[Faile]

Many fish will eat algae, but they usually only like one or two certain types of algae. This is why they aren't generally recommended as algae eating fish, since they'll only eat very specific types. I seem to recall cherry barbs being one of the fish occasionally mentioned as eating algae.

 

[Marconis]

Woke up this morning and my plants were wiped clean, pretty awesome!

 

[BigJim]

I would leave the rhizome in place. Hopefully you've just experienced crypt melt and you should start seeing new leaves.

 

[Filbey]

I only have 3 plants and my 4 cherry barbs eat more plant than flake food !!

 

[Marconis]

I would leave the rhizome in place. Hopefully you've just experienced crypt melt and you should start seeing new leaves.

Wait, what? Lol, a little confused...

 

[BigJim]

Crypts don't like to be moved from tank to tank. Sometimes, all the leaves will die off, leaving just the rhizome. This is known as crypt melt. If you indeed have experienced crypt melt, leave the rhizome alone and, once the plant has adjusted to your tank parameters, new leaves should start growing. Hopefully your barbs were just chowing down on dying leaves.

 

[Marconis]

Oh, I know what crypt melt is. I have experienced it with my first one and it is recovering nicely.

I just didn't know why you were talking about it, but it makes sense now.