# Cleaning crew



## ikuzo (Jul 11, 2006)

cherry shrimps are hardy and cheap.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Cherry shrimps. Watch out for snails though. They go crazy with breeding. Amano shrimps are another one of my favorites.


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## Ryzilla (Oct 29, 2005)

Bristlenose, amano's, nerites, and otto's. OH MY! This is what the Dorthy of planted tank oz would sing.


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## Nano Nano (Oct 18, 2007)

What sized tank?

What types of fish are in it?


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## kreativ (Oct 29, 2007)

its a 29 gallon planted tank, so far i have 1 gourami, 3 platies and 1 swordtail. I cannot find any shrimp in any LFS around my area, has anyone order some online?


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## Madfish (Sep 9, 2007)

Check out the swap n shop site here Im sure you can find what you want there.


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## Bulldog321 (Aug 9, 2007)

kreativ said:


> its a 29 gallon planted tank, so far i have 1 gourami, 3 platies and 1 swordtail. I cannot find any shrimp in any LFS around my area, has anyone order some online?


Gourami tend to enjoy shrimp. I put 10 ghost shrimp into my tank which has two gouramis. Even though there is plenty of hiding places, in less than a day, my gourami's had a shrimp feast.


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## kreativ (Oct 29, 2007)

oh, that really blows, what was you solution?


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

otos, sae . . . . .


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## Bulldog321 (Aug 9, 2007)

I have an otto and two mystery snails I bought at Petsmart. Unlike the regular snails that you find on plants, these mystery snails do not reproduce very quickly. 

A thing to note, my "cleaning crew" only take care of diatoms. None of them go near green spot algae or the little bit of thread algae I had.


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## ovenmit331 (Mar 27, 2007)

the algae squad from azgardens... http://azgardens.com/algaesquad.php


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## Riley (Jan 24, 2006)

I would go with ottos and SAEs. I think the shrimp would just be expensive food for you gourami. Flag fish would work for hair algae too.


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## Homer_Simpson (May 10, 2007)

kreativ said:


> Hey guys, any recommendation for a cheap, easy to take care cleaning crew?


Don't waste your time putting together a team of losers that may or may not get the job done.

Depending on the size of your tank, all you really need is a zebra nerite snail and a Siamese Algae Eater. You can think of them as dyamic duo of algae control. These two are the only algae eaters known to eat just about every kind of algae imaginable and some say that the zebra nerite will even eat blue green algae and the dreaded green spot algae(although I cannot confirm or deny). I plan on getting a zebra nerite snail for a 5 gallon natural planted hex tank that I will be experimenting with.

With these two, it is claimed that they will do such a good job of totally scrubbing your tank free of algae(without harming your plants) that you may end up having to supplement their diet with algae wafers.

I just go a SAE in my 40 Gallon Algae Farm and the SAE has already been busy working 24/7 chipping away at the algae. The Otos that were in there already proved useless. Those unfed losers won't even touch the diatom algae on the plant leaves. I would love to add a Nerite Snail, but don't have a tight fitting cover and there is just too much space for the Snail to escape. Make sure you don't have any escape routes in your tank if you plan to get a Nerite Snail as it will seek freedom from the tank and may escape.

Costwise, the SAE costed me $5 but if I had waited for the Tuesday Special(Lol, I was too impatient), I could have got him or her at the Tuesday half price fish special of $2.50

The Zebra Nerite is $6.49 regular but qualifies for the 1/2 price Tuesday Special of $3.25.

Both come with a 30 day money back/exchange guarantee.

Total cost: Approximately $6

P.S. A bristlenose pleco is really good too. I have never had problems with mine, but others say that they are notorious for damaging sword plant leaves and java fern leaves due to their rough handling of the leaves of such plants. For your tank, if you don't have java ferns or sword plants, a Bristlenose Pleco may be a better choice than an SAE as it does not get as large as the SAE.


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## Ryzilla (Oct 29, 2005)

Homer_Simpson said:


> Don't waste your time putting together a team of losers that may or may not get the job done.
> 
> Depending on the size of your tank, all you really need is a zebra nerite snail and a Siamese Algae Eater. You can think of them as dyamic duo of algae control. These two are the only algae eaters known to eat just about every kind of algae imaginable and some say that the zebra nerite will even eat blue green algae and the dreaded green spot algae(although I cannot confirm or deny). I plan on getting a zebra nerite snail for a 5 gallon natural planted hex tank that I will be experimenting with.
> 
> ...


Somethings I agree with and some I dont. 

Ottos work MUCH faster then most fish and are entirley NON aggressive so you could load up a tank with them. They WILL eat diatom and soft algaes. I have seen them eat fuzz algae and devoure diatoms. They will also eat the slime film on the water surface which there might be no other possible fish to do this. I have stocked 10 in a 30g and they, as a team, are workhorses.

Nerites snails do eat GSA, Fuzz algae, Diatoms. They IMO will NOT touch BBA, staghorn, clado, and hair algae (they usually cant reach this). They do climb out of the water, but IMO and personal experience they will not leave the aquarium. If you do have a rimless I am unsure if they will climb over.

The bristlenose is a monster eater. When algae is gone it needs alot of wafers, shrimp pellets, frozen foods, and any other food you can put in your tank. The downside to these is multiple males could create domincance issues in your tank. The feuding between adult males could pull up plants. It is best to buy 1 male with multiple females.

Your best approach at algae control is adding many different known algae eaters that are best know for targeting a specific algae.


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## Homer_Simpson (May 10, 2007)

Ryzilla said:


> Somethings I agree with and some I dont.


Nothing wrong with disagreeing.



Ryzilla said:


> Ottos work MUCH faster then most fish and are entirley NON aggressive so you could load up a tank with them. They WILL eat diatom and soft algaes. I have seen them eat fuzz algae and devoure diatoms. They will also eat the slime film on the water surface which there might be no other possible fish to do this. I have stocked 10 in a 30g and they, as a team, are workhorses.


Well, let's see I have 3 ottos in my 40 Gallon Algae Farm. And one SAE. In all fairness, the otos are working but at a snail's pace. If we were to put a stop watch to time which is doing a better and faster job of cleaning the dead Green dust algae and diatoms off the glass, the SAE would win hands down and is cleaning up the algae faster than the 3 otos(make that 2, I think one got tired and went into hiding for the day or he is dead - too much work I guess) combined. Geeze! even my Kribensis is doing a better job than the otos of clearing the glass of diatoms and dead GDA by repeatedly pecking it off. And Kribensis are not even supposed to be algae eaters. Hey don't take my word for it, come on down and have a look for yourself.



Ryzilla said:


> Nerites snails do eat GSA, Fuzz algae, Diatoms. They *IMO will NOT touch BBA, staghorn, clado, and hair algae (they usually cant reach this).* They do climb out of the water, but IMO and personal experience they will not leave the aquarium. If you do have a rimless I am unsure if they will climb over.


Yes, but with the exception of Clado, which I believe nothing will eat, the SAE will eat what the nerite does not. That is why I refer to them as the dynamic duo. Also, Nerites are the only creature known to devour green spot algae and possibly Blue Green Algae. Name me something else that devours green spot algae or even blue green algae. And lets not forget that the SAE is the only algae eater know to consume the dreaded red/black brush algae which nothing else will touch.



Ryzilla said:


> The bristlenose is a monster eater. When algae is gone it needs alot of wafers, shrimp pellets, frozen foods, and any other food you can put in your tank. The downside to these is multiple males could create domincance issues in your tank. The feuding between adult males could pull up plants. It is best to buy 1 male with multiple females.


Well, I have one Bristlenose Pleco in my 10 gallon signature tank. He has been in there for many months. To be honest, I don't know what he eats. It is not the plants and there is no algae that I can see unless he cleaned the tank of all the algae. He rarely comes out. I small piece of cucumber every other day keeps him healthy and happy and he does not bother the other fish. He does not require mass dumpings of food daily.



Ryzilla said:


> Your best approach at algae control is adding many different known algae eaters that are best know for targeting a specific algae.


The nerite snail and SAE will pretty much target all the algae and if you combine this with a focus on algae prevention though appropriate C02, plant mass, and fertilization you won't even need a sh*tload of different algae eaters to consume algae. Getting different many different algae eaters that target the same algae means you will also spend more money and push your tank's stocking limits to the max. Why would you use several different wrenches to tighten different nuts and bolts when 2 wrenches will do the job. Use the tools that get the job done.


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## ikuzo (Jul 11, 2006)

nerite laid eggs everywhere and enjoy dry trips in my living room. SAE uproot my plants. ottos die often. that's why i use clithon brevispina snails, amanos, and cherry shrimps. anyone tried rainbow sharks? i think they're pretty good algae eater.


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## Homer_Simpson (May 10, 2007)

ikuzo said:


> ...ottos die often. that's why i use clithon brevispina snails, amanos, and cherry shrimps...


Well despite dissing ottos, I do have 3 of them in my signature tank and they are still alive and kicking. They have been alive for over a year and they survived the transfer from a 20 gallon leaky tank and are in an overstocked 10 gallon, no problems. The Bristlenose Pleco and the ottos have even survived ammonia and nitrite spikes. The key is buying ones that have sat in a Local Fish Store Tank for months, these tend to be hardier. My experience with them is that these will likely survive long run.

As far as amanos and cherry shrimps. I guess if you don't have shrimp eating fish, you should be okay and monitor your water quality. It doesn't take much from my experience to kill them. An unnoticeable ammonia spike from a dead fish and you better get the net out, net them out, and flush them down the toilet.

I don't know about algae eating abilities of Rainbow sharks but they are known to grow up to 15 CM and are known to become quite aggressively as they get older, so I guess if you have a tank big enough to accomodate them and are going to house them with similiar fish that are aggressive/semi-agressive also, with lots of hiding places, you should be okay
http://www.fishlore.com/profiles_rainbow_shark.htm

By the way I had a 8 year old SAE in my 40 gallon planted before an overdose of C02 killed him. For several months that the plants were placed in there, he pretty much left them alone. He just cleaned algae off them and did not uproot them. Now, clown loaches and Pakistani Loaches - that is a different story.


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## ikuzo (Jul 11, 2006)

Homer_Simpson said:


> The key is buying ones that have sat in a Local Fish Store Tank for months, these tend to be hardier. My experience with them is that these will likely survive long run.


i'll keep that in mind... i had bad experience with ottos dying easily although i did acclimete them.


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## Homer_Simpson (May 10, 2007)

ikuzo said:


> i'll keep that in mind... i had bad experience with ottos dying easily although i did acclimete them.


I heard that Ottos like neons are just more sensitive. With ottos it has to do with the way they are chemically paralyzed in the wild before being caught. Some ottos don't recover from the effects of this and combined with the stress of the transport to the pet store, quite a number will die within the first month. There are times I was too impatient to wait a month as these fish are so popular I figured that they would sell out quickly, so I rushed to buy ottos that had only been in the local fish store for two weeks. These often died on me within a month of being in the tank. Also, when you purchase them, get the ones with the biggest bellies as this is sign that they are healthy and eating.

I don't know if you drip acclimitize them, but I drip acclimitize all my fish. I have to wait a little longer before I can place them in the tank but I can honestly tell you that in all the years that I had fish I lost very few fish drip acclimitizing them vs the bag float approach. 

This is my custom made setup to drip acclimitize my fish. It costed me next to nothing to rig up.

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...cts/45608-my-drip-acclimitization-set-up.html

Regards.


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## ikuzo (Jul 11, 2006)

Homer thanks for the link. i know a shop that has lots of ottos about a month ago and will visit it this week to take a peek at the ottos, maybe buying some.


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## Homer_Simpson (May 10, 2007)

ikuzo said:


> Homer thanks for the link. i know a shop that has lots of ottos about a month ago and will visit it this week to take a peek at the ottos, maybe buying some.


You're welcome.  

The closest pet store to me had some Otos and it was interesting to watch the stock decline after 2 months. You can bet the unhealty ones died and the rest sold quickly. There are about 5 left and they are much larger than any otos I have seen so far in any other store. I am willing to bet you that these are super healthy and anyone who is lucky enough to buy any of these five will likely have them for a long.....long...time. Tomorrow I will be setting up a low tech 3 gallon planted tank at work(a new home for my 9 year old peppered cory). If I don't run into any cycling issues then I may just pick one of these guys up to keep the cory company.


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## ikuzo (Jul 11, 2006)

that's a really old cory!!! i mean 9 years old wow... i always think that corydoras are included here as one of the cleaning crew as they scavenge for leftover food. used to have the bronze, panda, and the striped ones (forgot the name)


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## rasetsu (Oct 11, 2007)

Get about twice the number of otos you intend to keep, they enjoy each other's company and you will get a couple die offs no matter what you do since they are cheap enough...I had a nice and fat one that just up and dropped dead after 3 weeks. I watched it nibbling on algae on an anacharis stem and then it just drifted to the bottom and died for no reason at all.

Amano's have done well in my tanks despite my Rainbows that have picked off all but 2 of my cherry shrimp.


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## Homer_Simpson (May 10, 2007)

ikuzo said:


> that's a really old cory!!! i mean 9 years old wow... i always think that corydoras are included here as one of the cleaning crew as they scavenge for leftover food. used to have the bronze, panda, and the striped ones (forgot the name)


Lol, yeah seriously, that Peppered Cory is 9 years old. I feed him a algae wafer every second day and I crushed up some vacation feeder(the white solid stuff) and give him a little on Friday. He has been through some changes and he is super hardy. Last year, when I had him in a 2.5 gallon hex tank with java moss only, he shared the tank with a dwarf aquatic frog(who was 8 years old at the time). They never fought and it was funny to watch the frog lay on the peppered cory's back when they were both resting - they were the best of buddies. The tank was over run with algae and my coworkers would come into my cubicle and say eeewwww, you really need to clean that tank up. Not that the water was poor or the algae was deadly, it just made the tank look ugly and you could not see anything inside. Even when I cleaned the algae it kept coming back quickly. So I finally decided to transfer the cory and frog into a 2.5 gallon fish bowl with a filter. I did not transfer the java moss cause it had too much algae on it and I was too lazy to clean the algae. At that time I did not know anything about using hydrogen peroxide to safely clean algae off plants or I would have to clean the algae off the java moss. The new tank underwent a mini-cycle and I only realized it when the water went cloudy. By then it was too late, the frog was belly up the next day and the peppered cory survived the cycle. The peppered cory appeared depressed and sat in one corner motionless for a whole week. I seriously thought that he was going to die. He then snapped out of it and started eating and moving around again. As crazy as it sounds, when I see these things, I cannot help but thing that fish are more reactive to things around them(death of fish they school with) than we give them credit for.

I just completed putting together a low tech 3 gallon tank as per Tom Barr's method(minus the Seachem Onyx Sand - I used Tahitian Moon Sand instead) for the cory. It is not spectacular looking, but a lot better looking than the 2.5 gallon bowl he was. My aquascaping skills suck what can I say. I haven't transferred him in yet as I want to make sure the tank is cycled with no ammonia or nitrites.


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## ikuzo (Jul 11, 2006)

my current oldest fish are harlequin rasbora which i kept about 2 years old. a real hardy fish they are. the first year i fed them about 2 times a week (sometimes only once). the neons that came along with them died but the rasboras maybe somehow find they're own source of food and in healthy condition. now i feed them almost everyday and i really like they're appetite.

my longest pet fish :
5 years old fancy goldfish (RIP)

lol i should keep it in the cleaning crew topic 

amanos are really hardy


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## Homer_Simpson (May 10, 2007)

ikuzo said:


> my current oldest fish are harlequin rasbora which i kept about 2 years old. a real hardy fish they are. the first year i fed them about 2 times a week (sometimes only once). the neons that came along with them died but the rasboras maybe somehow find they're own source of food and in healthy condition. now i feed them almost everyday and i really like they're appetite.
> 
> my longest pet fish :
> 5 years old fancy goldfish (RIP)
> ...


That is too cool. I had the least luck with harlequin rasboras and tetras(excluding black skirt tetras). The current fish in my 40 gallon algae farm(excluding the ottos that I got a month ago and the SAE that I got about a week ago) are all about 8 years old. They include: Giant Danio(The tank bully), two Kribensis cichlids, a white cloud minnow, 3 black skirt tetras that are always chasing each other around and fighting, and a glass catfish. These are all pretty hardy. I accidently overdosed on C02 and did not realize it. I noticed no movement and the c02 drop checker was yellow. All the fish were motionelss and gasping like crazy and I could not see some others, the glass catfish was swimming around like he was drunk(side ways, upside down, etc.,), I turned off the C02 and quickly turned on bubble wand. I lost my 8-9 year old Siamese Algae Eater, but the rest all miracously recovered


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## daFrimpster (Mar 7, 2005)

dwarf crays while not necessarily algae eaters are good at cleaning the substrat fo excess food and such which can help prevent algae. And they are great fun to watch.


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