new fish and algae eater

[ducas005]

Hi. I have a 45 gallon tank with mollies, platies and sword tails (around 15 of these altogether) plus 2 iridescent sharks. It's a planted tank with amazon and giant hygro. I also had a betta but it died recently (found it stuck to the filter - an emperor 400 marineland with biowheel). I was devastated for a few days. Now I plant to get a new fish.

My tank faces the balcony on one side, and used to get brilliant sunshine there in summer. Recently I noticed the gravel around that are covered with some brown stuff which was not fish waste materials or food. i can only assume its brown algae.

Now I have decided to combine two problems into one. Can anyone suggest to me a fish that is different from the livebearers (fun to look at, different) as well as brown algae eater?

Note if this is not possible, can anyone please suggest to me an exotic looking fish (nothing to expensive though :-( ) to place with my live bearers, and an efficient algae eater?

Thanks for any suggestions, - peace out.

 

[LondonGman]

i use a bristlenose pleco which grows to 6 inches to contain my algae problems but one of the advisors here, corvuscorax, also rates the Ottos or Siamese Algae Eaters as being better (lol) than a pleco. I have no experience with them

 

[grimlock3000]

I have a 26g tank with 6 male Guppies and 6 Cherry Barbs and one Tetra. I had a bunch of brownish algae in the tank, mostly on the glass, and wanted something cool to eat it with. I wanted the new fish to not be agressive, or outgrow my tank, or stop eating algae when it grew up a bit. I ended up with a Bushy Nose Pleco, about 3.5 inches long and I paid $7 for it. The Bushy Noses look quite a bit different from regular Plecos, so you could pass them off as exotic

The purchased the fish Saturday afternoon. The Pleco spent more of the day in hiding. The next morning, my tank had almost no brown algae on the glass! Myself and my wife were amazed. Highly reccomended

 

[grimlock3000]

Nice, two Bushy/Bristle Pleco reccomendations during the same minute

I have Otos in another tank of mine. They might be better for your planted tank since they do not damage plants. They are good little troopers for sure, but it would take a few of them to do the same job of one Pleco. Otos have a tendecy to be fragile if the water conditions vary, and mine are very picky eaters.

Siamese Algae Eater are nice, but you need to be certain you are getting a true SAE or the fish can get agreesive when it gets larger.

 

[William]

I have an Albino Pl*co, Albino varriant of the species that gets over 2 foot long.

My tank had algae on the glass, This little Pl*co, not even two inches long, cleared the tank in 2 days.

The CAE that I have sucks the glass to, but I think he just hangs there for the heck of it instead of trying to actually eat algae.

 

[puffergirl]

Also take a look at the clown pleco. I had a relly bad algea problem in my guppy tank and bought one of these guys and the next day it was all gone. These guys are shy though and tend to like to do their work at night when no one is looking. And the really nice thing about them is that they don't grow to be 1 foot long like the common plec, they stay small around 2 inches.

 

[ducas005]

Wow - thanks guys (and girls). Thanx for all the choices. At this moment I am leaning towards a Bushy nose Pleco or a clown pleco. I will pop in later today at my lfs to see their selection. The only thing I am worried about is whether my mollies will bug them (I have one really aggressive male). So far haven't had much luck with scavengers, but the bushy nose picture really looks exotic.

 

[Madame_X]

I also have a bristlenose (or bushy nose) pleco in my 30 gallon planted tank. She does a great job on the algae. I made the mistake of over-feeding her veggies when my tank first cleared up. She went on strike for a few days and the algae returned, but I stopped supplementing her diet and she went back to the algae. Now I just throw in an algae wafer a couple of times a week, with an occasional piece of zucchini as a treat. You do need to have driftwood in the tank if you go with the pleco, though, as they need it in their diet.

I don't think your mollies would bother the pleco. Most fish seem to ignore them. My Bolivian Rams watch her curiously sometimes but have never bothered her in the slightest.