9thirty

Hey again,
I was just wondering what kind of algae eaters you might have in your tank to keep those green plagues at bay. Would you guys recommend a siamese algaeeater or something else?

Adragontattoo

I have Ancistrus sp., otos, snails, cherry red shrimp, and true SAE's in various tanks.

It all depends on the size of the tank and you choice for what goes in there IMO.

Squawkbert

What I've read/experienced:

True SAEs are good for larger tanks, but they can get a bit lazy & quarrelsome in their old age.
Otos are good for smaller tanks, if you can keep them fed. CAEs are generally bad news.
Pond & MT Snails are good for gently cleaning plant leaves (as are Otos), but if you overfeed, you'll have pounds of them.
Flagfish are good for certain types of algae but sometimes go after plants if the algae runs out (as do some Pleco species).
Mollies and Gouramis do eat a little algae from plant stems etc, they'll even yank hair algae, only to spit it out, but it gets some off the plants.
Shrimp (Amano, Cherry etc). eat algae but aren't the best scrubbers of glass and they are popcorn for larger fish.

In short, having a few Otos & snails around are good for keeping algae to a minimum on plant leaves. Scrapers are best for glass, nothing but careful management of inputs (food, CO2, light) & algicides (or, better yet, Excel) seems to kill cladophora - hair algae.

kwc1974

Squawbert, I am sorry to hear you are having a bad time with algae eaters
I keep a few both Amano and cherry shrimp for hair algae.
I will kill any snail that enters my tank except Nerites. Nerites will clean you glass real well. I also keep some ottos more for visual than algae contol...but they help the Nerites.

But for my money Nerites have been the best algae eaters I have bought.

DonaldmBoyer

Guppies/Endlers are great for eating algae off of fine-leaved plants. Otherwise, ditto what the other people have already put.

I would stay away from Chinese algae eaters; they tend to get pretty territorial and chase any fish that stray too close. A bit too obnoxious for me. I would say too, that snails and shrimp are great, as well as ottocinclus.

Homer_Simpson

The following combination of fish will pretty much devour all known types of algae, excluding Blue Green Algae, although it is said that Nerite Snails will eat BGA.

Siamese Algae Eater: Does get lazy in its old age but if you get one when it is young it will do a number on all types of algae, even the dreaded black brush/black beard algae that nothing else will touch.

Bristlenose Pleco: Another good one that will pretty much devour all types of algae, although some claim it can do a number on sword plant and java fern leaves due to its rough handling of these leaves.

Nerite Snail: Will also devour most types of algae, including the dreaded green spot algae that nothing else will touch. You need a tightly covered tank, if you get one or it will escape.

Black Mollies and Rosy Barbs: Will eat string/thread/hair algae like sphagetti, but some claim that they fish will damage leaves in their unrelenting attempts to yank the algae off the leaves.

Shrimp are said to be highly sensitive to temperature and tank parameters.

If I were to set up another large aquarium with a tight fitting cover, I would put together a team of the above algae eaters. The SAE and Nerite snail, combined, however could probably take care of 99% of your algae. Combine this with moderate lighting and a good fert dosing program and algae will not be something that should become a huge problem.

kwc1974

You do not nessicarily need a tightly covered tank to keep nerites, I have had them for quite some time (year and a half-ish) and have only lost one to crawling out of the tank. Nerites like to come up out of the water for a time and I usually keep a waterline 1" from the top of the tank and I think that suits their needs.

Of coarse, everyones experience will differ from mine. Maybe snails just like my water

I can say this, I recently took the nerites out of a tank (leaving the ottos and shrimp in) and the glass started to turn green in a matter of days. And algea that had never showed up on driftwood started growing. I will put them and a new shipment back in the tank soon.

Squawkbert

Temp - no, most algae eating shrimp are not very picky about temp, but they are picky about certain things being in the water - you need water that's Cu free and very low in ferts, NO2, NH3 and is generally pretty clean. They'll tolerate low levels of NO3 - think of doing EI at ~1/10 scale.

DonaldmBoyer

Ditto with "Squaky"; NO Copper!! Mine all died when I fertilized with Cu within about 12 hours. I hear that they can theoretically handle a very minute amount, but I don't trust that. I never dose nitrogen, either, into a shrimp tank.

Otherwise, they hand Excel, CO2, Phosphourus, Iron, trace ferts quite nicely! Mine are regularly berried, and do very well in temps ranging from upper 60's to low 80's. I have my tank set at about 72-74F currently. I think that they are pretty hardy, and very helpful and interesting to watch swimming around.

NeonRob

In my experience, Ancistrus are great for softer algae, but not the tougher types such as spot and new tank syndrome types that need to be scraped off the glass with a razorblade, but have never bothered plants. Otos devour brown. Rosy Barbs hands down eliminate all hair algae types in my tanks. Nothing seems to have an appetite for BBA.