Keeping Chinese Algae Eaters

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

sinibotia

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Sep 1, 2014
Messages
3,916
Location
Central Maine
So lately I've been thinking- there are lots of "bad fish" that beginner fishkeepers tend to take home without realizing it's a mistake. Fish like oscars, redtail catfish, silver dollars, plecos, etc. And all of those fish do have their own "following" in the hobby with people dedicated to keeping them.

What I've never, ever heard of is someone DELIBERATELY keeping chinese algae eaters. They're sold practically everywhere, and yet I don't know any experienced fishkeeper who has them. Is that something anyone here does? I'm actually really curious what a CAE-specific setup looks like. Are there any fish they're safe to keep with? Can you keep more than one together as adults? Not interested in setting up something like this now but if no one else is trying it I might give it a go in the future.
 
I'd like to see a tank setup of them. Always thought of them as a pest because of aggression and how they are sold.


Caleb

Sent via TARDIS
 
Hahaha i like this :) a shout out to the underdogs.

Maybe they are just angry because nobody likes them so they lash out :)


My uncle has a full grown chinese algae eater thats living with an adult jack dempsey. It kills anything new in the tank. So maybe large aggressive fish? Itll be a fine line to find something that is big and tough enough to deal with a cae while not killing it.
 
There's you tube videos of cae in certain cichlid tanks. I guess no matter how they feel about their tankmates..they'll only tolerate the cae slime coat sucking for so long before they work together to remove the cae. It's not fun to watch though.. you'd need a super fast and aggressive shaoling species in a pretty long tank I'd think..

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Aquarium Advice mobile app
 
Ive often thought that their behavior of sucking on fish and killing them is a learned behavior caused by lack of food. I wonder if we could find an acceptable way of feeding them if it would prevent that behavior.

We see the same thing in plecos.
 
Ive often thought that their behavior of sucking on fish and killing them is a learned behavior caused by lack of food. I wonder if we could find an acceptable way of feeding them if it would prevent that behavior.

We see the same thing in plecos.


I do believe I heard somewhere along the lines they eat standard fish food when grown up.
 
Maybe in the future I'll set up a species tank for these guys, or a tank set up around them. It seems like very few people have given them a chance!
 
Back
Top Bottom