Quick Q's about plants/algae eaters

[cinnastix911]

I would like to get some hardy FW plants to go in my fish tank. I would prefer them to get fairly large but need little help. I have a medium sized stone substrate and stock lighting. I have a few plants but am overall unhappy with them.

I desperatley need something that eats algae like my catfish eats tankmates. Problem though is that from what I have heard a lot of algae eaters destroy plants as hobbies or they are too small to last longer than a few hours with the catfish. This may be a lost cause but if anyone out there knows a large, non-plant demolishing algae eater (or a solution to algae problems!) it would be spifftacular if you shared

 

[theotheragentm]

You might want to check out the planted tank forum. You'll get people with more experience there.

 

[cinnastix911]

I will start the plant part over there... I will leave the algae eaters over here

 

[theotheragentm]

I just thought since you were talking about knocking over plants, it might be all best answered there, but I'll take a crack at the algae issue.

Do you have pictures to show us the algae so other users can identify it? I'm fortunate enough not to have an algae issue, but there are different types and other users will be able to help you better with some of the specifics.

If you have an algae problem, stopping it's source might be the plan rather than getting something to consume it. How much light is getting to the tank? Algae is also a sign of overfeeding often times. Search "blackout" to find out drastic measure to get rid of algae in a tank, but if you just have the build up on glass and surfaces, a snail or two might do the trick.

Mystery Snails eat algae pretty well. Most of the time they die of starvation is what I read, so I wouldn't put too many of them in at once. PetSmart carries them. They actually look really cool too.

 

[Mosaic]

Well, large algae eaters and plants generally don't mix. The only kind I can keep with my big pleco is java moss, fern, and anubias, because they are rooted to the driftwood. Large algae eater really don't do a great job eating algae either. Oto cats win the prize, but I think BN plecos do a great job too at a bigger size. Both are plant friendly. Either way, if you have a lot of algae, you'll need to do some work on your own to get rid of it. There's a lot of factors - nutrients, lighting, etc - that are involved so you need to tease each one apart to figure out what's going on.

A lot of my algae problems went away when I added plants, but I guess I'll go answer that over in the plant forum.

 

[cinnastix911]

Moving thread to plants.