I finally couldn’t take it any more! My Siamese Algae Eaters were just not eating algae and devastating my plants! I went to my LFS and traded my three SAE’s for three Oto Cats. I know that this was not an equal trade on a cost basis but I hate SAE’s. They are nasty and aggressive. They attack other fish and devour certain plants.
I enjoyed visiting http://www.fishaliciousfish.blogspot.com/ to read about Crossocheilus langei and some other relatives of the SAE (or maybe other SAEs ). Very nice site.
As mentioned, the snout is a good distintuishing feature among the fishes with zig zag center line, as are other features in Niederle's table.
However, you also need to look carefully at the dorsal fin. You will see that siamensis does not have any black edge rays. This was pointed out by Liisa in our 1996 article and is not mentioned in the more recent references. You can see the rays in Niederle's picture of langei.... and possibly on Fishalicious.
Although my eyes are not as good as they were in '96, i will have to take a closer look at my fish.
--Neil
Well, I don't find that a very easy question to answer, since I don't really think that particular blog represents the last word on the taxonomy of the Crossocheilus genus.
I've pretty carefully researched the fish I've purchased and I believe them to be the real deal - C. siamensis.
The fish that she labeled as Crossocheilus Langei is slightly "off" IMO and probably isn't a true C. siamensis either.
I don't know either if that particular blog represents the last word on the taxonomy of the Crossocheilus genus. But it gives a probable explanation why we have so wide behavior discrepancies. Should´t at least check it out if it´s correct?
My two Crossocheilus have never touched my java moss.
OK, let me back up here. I certainly didn't mean to be grumpy in my reply. It probably came off that way. I didn't feel that the question was a fair one: "According to her article, what fish do you have?"
I'm not trying to knock her article. It's well done, but I'm not sure I agree with her points about C. siamensis and C. langei and the labels attached to her photos. As such I find it a little awkward to apply one of her designations to my own fish. I do agree that there are many masquerading species out there that are frequently passed off as C. siamensis. Behaviour of these species varies widely. I also don't agree that true C. siamensis are almost impossible to find. That might have been true three or four years ago, but I've seen "the real McCoy" in lots of plant-oriented LFS's lately.
Throw on top of this even more ongoing confusion about what a "true" C. siamensis is, and it becomes the usual taxonomy mess. For that reason alone I'm not really willing to specify with any certainty that what I have are members of the one and true siamensis species.
I'd also be hesitant to suggest that certain species always eat java moss and other species never do. I've had fish that I raised from the same brood with with wide differences in eating behaviors.
I'd also be hesitant to suggest that certain species always eat java moss and other species never do. I've had fish that I raised from the same brood with with wide differences in eating behaviors.
But I just was been curious to know if your Crossocheilus have eyes honey-colored above, white below and black stripe in the middle and also have a white belly with an elongate blackish blotch around the vent.
Going back over all of the posts on this thread, the majority of them were not concerned with what species of Crossocheilus they have. In fact, my guess is that the ones who are tearing their hair out over the behavior of their "Siamese Algae Eaters" have some species of "Flying Fox" (Epalzeorhynchos spp.).
The "Flying Fox" is confused with the true algae eaters of genus Crossocheilus because all of these fishes have a strong horizontal band running the length of the body and on into the caudal area. One way to easily differentiate the "evil" Flying Foxes from the good guys is that the Fox has two pairs of barbels on the upper lip. And in fact it is related more to barbs than catfish. The "Siamese Algae Eater" has only one pair of barbels on the upper lip. Another characteristic that will fairly easily tell you if you have an algae eater or just a vegetative terrorist is that the algae eaters have transparent fins and the Fox doesn't.
Now as the aforementioned article explains, not all Crossocheilus are created equal! C. siamensis is the one that is so famous for its algae eating abilities. But as also said before, this is not the species that is usually sold as an SAE. There are several Crossocheilus species and of those only C. siamensis and C. langei can be relied upon to be good algae eaters.
This is why the article on Fishalicious is valuable. She does a pretty good job of differentiating between the various Crossocheilus. So, caveat emptor!
I personally have a 250L tank fully planted Dutch style and I placed 10 sae in it from the beginning. The tank is more than a year old with several types of plants.
In the tank I also have a few otos, around 10 Amano shrimps and a large number or red cherries as they keep multiplying.
I have seen one or two leaves from my ludwigia repens been eaten half way during this time, but nothing much. The sae tend to nimble on my dwarf hair grass a lot and keep it constantly low in height.
On my other tank which is 100L with rocks and wood I have 4 sae along side with a few otos and Amano. In that tank they have eating everything I try to grow, except from anubias and crypts. They devour my ludwigia repens, ludwigia super red, H-ra, stayrogen repens leaves, pogostemon erectus, everything.
They are sae as you can see the black strip going in the middle of their back fins. So I believe that yes they will eat several of your plants especially if you don't feed them on a dialy basis.
So it's not an easy decision to get them since it's not easy to take them out of a large tank with rocks, wood and plants. If you don't have bba I would say don't get sae. Get otos, get Amano shrimp.
Good luck to all
deleted; noticed date of original posting more than 10 years old.
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