SAE Replacement?

[SparKy697]

I bought three SAEs and put them in my 29 gallon tank. I knew that they would get too big for the tank and are well on their way to being just that. I will be moving them to the 55 gallon soon.

These fish perform a great service. They pretty much visit every leaf in the tank and help keep everything spotless. Between them the otos, corys, and snails, I can not find a speck of algae, or even as much as a single dead leaf!

What can I replace them with? Something that will do the same work, but still stay small enough to not outgrow the 29g.

 

[theotheragentm]

From my experience, if a fish can keep up with the algae, it's probably too big for the tank. A Pleco is a good cleanup crew, but they are too large for most tanks they can keep up with generally. SAEs are great for keeping up with algae, but because of their size, they can't keep up in tanks in which they actually fit. I've never had much luck with an army of smaller critters to keep things in check either. I would try more snails personally. They do a decent job and are great to watch.

 

[SparKy697]

I'm fairly heavy on the bottom dwellers and could probably do just fine without the sae in the tank. I suspect that the lack of algae is somewhat a result of EI dosing and water changes. I was just hoping that there was something with similar behavior that I could replace them with.

Now the fun starts. Catch 3 SAEs in a planted 29 gallon tank.

 

[theotheragentm]

It took me ten minutes to catch one in a lightly planted tank. You should just get a giant net and wait for them to swim into it. It might take less time.

 

[rkilling1]

A BN pleco should be fine in that size of a tank. I would look into getting some oto's to replace the SAE's.