[ferris89]

I have had the worst time with algae in my 10 gallon, and have tried absolutely everything!ainkille
I am now looking towards shrimp again. I tried a few cherry shrimp once, and my lovely tiger barbs did not play nicely with them.... I need larger shrimp that can hold their own... I am looking for any suggestions, but I am also running on a college students budget... so I won't be able to buy for 2-3 weeks, any help and any offers would be appreciated, thank you!

 

[aznb0i]

try bristlenose pleco they are great at cleaning algae

 

[krisvalkyrie]

Amano shrimp are algae eating machines. Gotta be careful though - I have an algae problem in my planted tank and I bought some shrimp for them, found a couple dead in the morning - I think they ate themselves to death...

 

[NeonFlux]

How big do these amano shrimp get btw and do rainbowfish delicate them? How about congo tetras?

 

[Ebichua]

Amanos do best but it depends on what kind of algae you have. They specialize in green hair and that's pretty much it...

They are certainly larger than cherries. I have one female that's about 2 inches. And for future reference, cherries aren't good algae eaters. Heck, I don't even think they really eat algae off our plants. They eat algae tabs and stuff but the whole thing about using them as a "colorful algae cleaner" is a myth. They're awful at it.

 

[MacFan]

Amanos get pretty large... 2" or so. Bamboo/wood shrimp get 4-5" but they are filter feeders only which means they have to get it out of the water stream and will often sit in front of the filter return for that reason. I've had really good success with cherry shrimp, perhaps just as a numbers game. I have a tank of just cherry shrimp and often put plants in there for "cleaning."

In terms of fish bothering them, you can help this some by changing the context in which you add them. Generally, our fish assume anything added to the tank is food and will treat it as such. So if you're going to add cherry shrimp or anything small, add them at a time of day when it's not feeding time, typically when the lights are off is best, and introduce them into an area of the tank where they can seek cover (java moss, HM, etc). Once they're established, you might lose a few, but i have them in most of my tanks with no problems and have everything in those tanks from Rainbows, to Congos, to Loaches, to Discus. Cherry shrimp can be very fast, but you have to help them get "moved in" so to speak. Cherry shrimp will likely not reproduce in a community tank, but in a tank by themselves they multiply like crazy.

What type(s) of algae do you have? It might also help to address the causes to reduce its presence. You can't really get rid of it completely, but there are some types that have clear cause/effect relationships.

Michael

 

[ZID ZULANDER]

Depending on the algae you should try the nerite snails they are eating machines and the fish normally leave them alone. Also if its hair algae or beard algae you might want to get a SAE Siamensis algae eater. PM me if you need help finding these guys.

 

[MacFan]

If it's just green and brown algae, it's an excess of nutrients in the tank. More frequent water changes plus manual removal of the algae will get rid of it in time. More plants and good water circulation will keep it away. You don't want to build up too many maintenance fish because once the tank is in balance you'll have to feed them too. Plus they contribute to the bio-load of the tank which already appears a bit high.

Ferris, if you don't have a source of good plants, PM me and I can mail some to you before it gets much colder.

Michael

 

[ferris89]

wow! what a great set of responses, I have what appears to be staghorn algae, and the usual green glass algae, I have MTS in there, and the fish load should be smaller now, had a few casualties this week :-/ so I have 2 cory catfish (tiny guys) 1 dojo loach, 3 tiger barbs, 3 danios and one fish that I just forgot the name of lol

does anybody have shrimp I can purchase in a couple of weeks when I am home for a month? the cherries I had earlier were eaten in days...
thanks again!!

 

[JadeRune]

Hi,
I'm new to aquarium online forums and wanted to get help with some referrals to good, honest, and reliable online aquarium stores. I've been buying Amano shrimps from a local store for many years, but in the past few years have noticed that they are very small, and they do not grow any larger than 1". I've read that they are being breed with other shrimps, but not sure.

All I know is that they definitely do not look like the ones I used to buy 8 years ago. Does anyone have any suggestions on which online website I can buy these shrimps?

Oh, I'm also looking for giant hygrophilia. I had many of these a long time ago, but my last one died a year ago when I had to move and redo my tank. I live in California, and I heard from a local fish store that they are illegal here, but have not confirmed that anywhere in my online research. Please help!

Thanks a billion!!

JadeRune

 

[misterchengmoua]

How big do these amano shrimp get btw and do rainbowfish delicate them? How about congo tetras?

my largest are close to 2 inches.
keep you tank densely planted and you should have no problems raising any type of shrimp with rainbows or congos.
if you are adding shrimp to an existing community tank, add the shrimp at night(lights out) to avoid them being eaten.

 

[macclellan]

And for future reference, cherries aren't good algae eaters. Heck, I don't even think they really eat algae off our plants. They eat algae tabs and stuff but the whole thing about using them as a "colorful algae cleaner" is a myth. They're awful at it.

Huh? Cherries eat lots of algae, just not as well or as much as Amanos. Take a tank with lots of algae...add cherries, many algae types go away. I've done this numerous times. There's nothing mythical about that...

 

[MacFan]

Any algae-eating creature will eat less algae if you give them easy-to-access algae wafers. Not that you shouldn't feed them, but not daily. Also, not all algae eating shrimp/fish will eat all types of algae, so you have to be sure you have the right type. Some algaes (BGA, BBA, Clado) often have to be dealt with by other means.

There is also a question of numbers. The benefit of cherry shrimp is that without predators, they will multiply and the sheer numbers make them better than Amanos in many cases. But then Amanos aren't good at low concentrations... I think I read you want something like one Amano shrimp per 5-10 gallons?

 

[helgymatt]

Cherries will not eat green dust algae on the glass. A scraper or nerite snails will treat that. Siamese algae eaters will do a very good job with black brush algae. I'm not sure how well shrimp get rid of staghorn algae....maybe someone else does.

A couple things have been said here that are misleading.
The first is that excess nutrients will cause green and brown algae...not true. Excess nutrients don't cause any kind of algae. That is what the Estimative Index fertilization method is based on (excess nutrients) and people typically have few algae problems with that method. The brown algae (diatoms) on glass, equipment, and plants is typical of a new tank and otocinclus do a great job with that. The algae will go away after once the tank gets established.

Second, insufficient, inconsistent CO2 is the main cause of most types of algae, especially black brush algae, staghorn, thread algae, etc. Make sure you have enough CO2! Use a drop checker, observe the plants and fish and make adjustments as needed. You can also roughly determine CO2 concentrations by using the KH,PH, CO2 relationship. Treat the problems first and then worry about trying to get rid of the algae.

I'm not sure of a very good place to get amanos online, but you can get cherry shrimp about anywhere. Try the for sale threads.

 

[bsmith]

Im going to go with the Neocardina "consistent amount of co2 in the tank". Very pretty and an absolute must for any beatiful scape.

 

[ferris89]

thanks all! I get out of school in three weeks,so I will be able to focus on my tank again, it is filling out nicely, but it still has some of the same issues less algae, but it's getting there

 

[Gordonrichards]

Amano, or a few otos