cleaner fish

[sir_dudeguy]

are there any fish that eat fish waste? or any other creature that can be put in a freshwater tank.

 

[Rach101]

Yes. Its this big clear tube fish... that stays partially at out water. Now what you do is suck on the other end of it, then watch as the waste disspears into a bucket. dump the bucket. and there you go.

 

[Devilishturtles]

Yes. Its this big clear tube fish... that stays partially at out water. Now what you do is suck on the other end of it, then watch as the waste disspears into a bucket. dump the bucket. and there you go.

Hehe. Nice one.

are there any fish that eat fish waste?

Not exactly. Fish waste usually decays right fast, and no fish I know of eats it as a primary diet.

Bottom feeding fish (corydoras, synodontis, loaches, plecos, etc) will eat leftover food and sometimes algae (for the pleco) but that's about it.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

Yes. Its this big clear tube fish... that stays partially at out water. Now what you do is suck on the other end of it, then watch as the waste disspears into a bucket. dump the bucket. and there you go.

HAHA. Very funny. I was actually sitting here thinking, big clear tube fish....hmmm. I don't think I've ever seen one of those before. Blonde moment!

 

[sir_dudeguy]

hehe, besides a python, are there any real fish like cories or anything?

 

[Meredith]

Even if there were some fish that ate other fish poo, that fish would still poo so you would still have fish poo that needed to be removed. Did that make sense?

 

[Blucat]

i think snails will eat fish waste

 

[sir_dudeguy]

yeah, i got a big snail but its not eating it. and i got white sand so it kinda sticks out. i do frequent water changes, but i was just lookin for somethin for in between changes. dont plants help too?

 

[Blucat]

Well plants will take up fish waste when it is decomposed. Fish waste turns into ammonia. Then good bacteria end up converting the ammonia to nitrates to cut the long story short. Most plants will then take up the nitrates and some will take up the ammonia.

 

[sir_dudeguy]

are there any low light plants that would be good for this?. Preferably small to mid range plants
thanks

 

[Felf]

java moss is a low light beast that will consume your tank but lower nitrates

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I have a little tid bit of info that may help you out. I don't know if you'll like it, but it's just what we do. We also have white sand in our tanks. Having Cichlids, they produce a lot of waste. So, we sprinkled black sand all over the tank. It won't look too pretty at first, but give it a couple days, swish it around with the white sand and you will have a kind of peppered look. We can't see fish waste on the sand at all. We took chop sticks and pushed the black sand down into the white sand in the front and it made a really cool design on the front of the tank.

 

[wishbone]

are there any low light plants that would be good for this?. Preferably small to mid range plants
thanks

im sure some plant experts will pipe up here, but the general recommendations are anubias, anacharis, hornwort, java fern, and java moss... you can check out www.plantgeek.com for additional easy and very easy rated varieties...

 

[TankGirl]

If you have sand you should try crypts. They are low light plants that do very well in sand. They will do nothing for the poo that lies on the bottom (I know exactly what you are talking about!) but they are very nice plants that are readily available at most LFS.

Excellent advice to mix black and white sand - and that is very true that it camouflages debris. Pure black sand is no better than white, but when you mix them it adds a textured look and the mulm virtually disappears. My ARLC has a cichlid sand mixture that comes black and white, and I love it for that reason.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

We did it by pure accident in the 55 gal. I dumped the wrong bucket into the tank. James was mad at me at first, but then when he realized that the tank with the white sand showed all the mess, he dumped black sand into it. Kind of funny how that works out.