pleco replacement

[africandiscus]

What is a good replacement for a pleco to remove algea off the glass, that is not a "poo machine"?

thanks

[weird]

An army of otocinclus (you will need quite a few of these guys cause they slow
), or perhaps bristlenoses.

[skoom]

i keep 2x bristlenoses in my tank...don't poop that much....

[luvmydiscus]

I absolutley love my bristlenose. I used to have the regular pleco and had to trade them in so often as they were to be so fast for my tank. The bristlenose is just a nice size of 5". They are great!

:D

[jim]

But I heard bristlenoses are not as active as pleco, is that true?
Hey Weird, where can I get ottocinclus?
I bought some yellow algea suckers after I sold my pleco, they are very active. But I heard they might suck on my discus.... bid worried..

[africandiscus]

Otto's have been known to suck larger fish.

http://www.fishpondinfo.com/algae.htm

[jim]

When I was in overseas, I saw people put a lot of shrimps (they call it black shell shrimp) in all planted tanks. Those tanks are so clean you won't believe. Too bad we can not get any algea eating shrimps here...at least I never see any...

[weird]

I asked my otos, they said they would never do that. I would be more worried about a pleco taking fancy to the slime coat than a little oto.

Jim, you can get otos from any LFS, they are very popular , and really cute. Get a few of them though.

[jim]

Thanks Dave....will go shopping tomorrow....hope the LFS in Mandarin Centre have some...

[nicholas76]

bristelnoses !!! they are absolute poo machines!


well mine are anyway

[weird]

Jim, all my otos are from mandarin centre, so those guys are healthy. They are kewl little dudes and I swear by otos, I have 3 of them in my 4 ft tank with my 4 juvs/adult discus, and they have been nothing but a welcome addition to the tank.

[Mattzilla]

yeah bristle nose will do the job of eating algea but they do poo a fair bit......

[kevkoi]

Otos and whiptails would be my suggestion. I have never observed Otos doing any harm to other fish.

Article on the web uses the cautionary word "may". Author I believe has never observed it happen and is probably putting up a cautionary note based on some other forum readings.

It is disturbing how often passages written by hobbyist on websites are quoted as fact. I once observed a goldfish forum talking about otocinculus but half of the participants were confused and were acutally thinking of the nasty Chinese algae eater.... which may be where the myth of otos sucking on large fish and doing harm comes from (misidentification of fish species!).

kev

[africandiscus]

What are whiptails?

[weird]

Cute sexy little buggers, they look like twigs in the pictures ... they are on my to buy list ... for a cute picture, check this whiptail piggybacking a pleco.

http://www.geocities.com/alpays2000/fishlist/catfish/images/whiptailpleco1.jpg

[xen]

Here's a pic of one of my whiptails. Gorgeous little fish, and damned good algae eaters too. Plus they aren't the fastest growing fish in the world, so they won't need replacing often (if at all). I also think they make a striking visual contrast to discus - they almost look prehistoric. You can't really see it in this pic, but their tails split into two extremely fine strands (think hair). Very unusual, and very pretty.

http://community.webshots.com/photo/198258203/198273029glMWYQ

(for some reason I can't upload this file - keep getting "
Upload Error: Could not upload Attachment to ./files/dscf4053a.jpg". this is my webshots link)

Kev, very good point about forum postings becoming folklore. I can't tell you how sick I am of hearing that you can't keep Siamese Algae Eaters with discus, because they'll eat discus' slime coat. I suspect misidentified Chinese Algae Eaters are to blame there also. Personally my SAEs have always been little champs, and never bothered anything else in my tanks.

Cheers!
John