Best Tank Cleaners

[Yao]

What cleans your tank the best? Algae eaters, plecos, shrimp, snails, a combination? What do you think gets at the most variety of algae? Which are the cutest/funnest? 8)

 

[crazycat]

siamese algae eaters and snails! and loaches--soooooo cute!

 

[Tiffi]

Otocinclus and Amano Shrimps - one cute, one very interesting to watch/different.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

It depends on what you are looking for (green, brown, hair algae, leftover food). My best algae eater: Water changes. My favorite cleaner fish would be a pleco. It doesn't matter what kind, they are all very cute and funny to watch. But my Sailfin or BN are my favorites. Snails are cute but just don't cut it. My BN has so much personality. One night I watched him sucking on a pea. He pulled the pea over ontop of him. So here he lays on his back with the pea stuck to his mouth.

 

[macman7010]

cory cats and plecos and loaches

 

[Acer]

i have 5 cory and 2 huge mystery snails..

 

[Meredith]

Since my plec has been moved to the 10gal, the glass on my 55 looks horrible. I actually had to buy an algae scraper :?

 

[Zezmo]

Cory's eat the food that floats to the bottom. Loaches keep the snails in check. SAE eat the the Beard Algae and maybe some hair. Bristlenose Pleco for the green spot. Otto for the brown and some green algae, MTS and Mystery Snail to eat plant debris.... thats currently

In the past, I has a Golden Algae Eater (Albino CAE) I tell you nothing kept my glass clean like he did. When he was in there, I only have to scape the green spot every couple weeks. I removed him because he got too agro. Now I scrape daily.

 

[talloulou]

What cleans your tank the best?

Me

 

[CompMage]

Green scrubbing pad. Gravel Vac, and ME!
Fish don't clean tanks. People clean tanks.

But now that is said and done, I have a rainbow shark that does a good job at keeping leftovers eaten and a small amount of agley. But they get kind of big and territorial.

 

[Guest]

PLECO's... Oto's, cories, and loaches... oh and snails, both MTS and Apple

 

[Yao]

I guess I'm looking to add a few new bottom feeders/algae eaters and trying figure out which are most effective. I just added some plants to my tank and put in a new plant light - and I've started to notice brown spot algae starting to take over the bottom of my tank on my gravel. It's not appealing to look at, since I have blue stones. The rest of my tank is pretty clean. What should I do for this, are shrimp a good idea? 8O

 

[Guest]

oto's love brown algae. and they stay small.. what size tank is it?

 

[Yao]

It's a 20 long

 

[Guest]

yeah you could definitely get a small cool of otocinclus in there... and i know they eat brown algae.

 

[azn_fishy55]

and for the bottom some ghost shrimp for the bottom.

 

[Skyrmir]

I'd have to vote for Cory cats myself. adorable, active and keep the bottom of the tank spotless. They won't actually clean the glass, but with next to no leftover food on the bottom of the tank, the glass stays cleaner longer.

 

[Hrafnkel]

I've never actually had any algae issues in my tanks... >.> My favorite cleaner is my rubberlip pleco or my snails. They're fun to watch.

 

[Big C]

SAE for hair algae! They're the best and cool to watch too! 8)