[Kinection]

I recently just put my pleco (7 inches) into my shrimp tank
for algae cleaning purposes, and I was wondering if they
eat baby shrimp, or adult shrimp. Mines produces a lot of
waste too, so there might be an ammonia problem. Remove...
or keep?

 

[sbarbee54]

Remove and get a Otto. Plecs can consume babies and their waste levels are a ton


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[Msheresy]

I recently just put my pleco (7 inches) into my shrimp tank
for algae cleaning purposes, and I was wondering if they
eat baby shrimp, or adult shrimp. Mines produces a lot of
waste too, so there might be an ammonia problem. Remove...
or keep?

What size is your shrimp tank and what kind of pleco is it?

 

[Kinection]

30 gallon tank, and I'm not sure. Let
me try to find a pic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plecostomus
The one in the first pic.

 

[Kinection]

Remove and get a Otto. Plecs can consume babies and their waste levels are a ton


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I've been looking for an oto for 2 months now, my LFS
said they would stock some in for me... and still haven't.
-_-

 

[Dany08fa]

otos should be really cheap and really easy to find. both petsmart/petco sale them for under $2 each.

 

[Kinection]

I wish they really were that easy to find... I've visited
8 Petsmart + Petcos.

 

[Dany08fa]

thats a bummer.... i've seriously never been to a place that didn't have them...

 

[Vincent Tran]

I wish they really were that easy to find... I've visited
8 Petsmart + Petcos.

The petsmart in fountain valley have them... or at least when I go. They are kind of pricy though, or so I remember. 405 Tropical Fish has them for $1.50 so I got mine form there.

 

[Kinection]

Oh, I never been there, I'll go this weekend then!

 

[GMYukonon24s]

Do you still have the pleco in the 30g or did you remove it?

 

[Kinection]

Its still in there atm, if I do remove it....
my taiwan moss will likely be killed from this
weird brown slimy algae. Same thing happened
to my java moss. If you would like to help,
the forum is in the Algae section.

 

[Newman]

you likely have a common pleco. they are ok for a little while in smaller tanks but eventually they'd do best in huge tanks of 90gals or more(just an estimate). they do grow pretty big and only a big tank can handle their size and waste levels.

algae is best eaten by SAEs. if you have a fish tank, and some room for them - get 5 SAEs, and place your infected plants and objects into that tank for a cleaning. younger SAEs do a terrific job of keeping planted tanks spotless. They are most definitely not shrimp safe however so you must keep them in a fish tank.

 

[Kinection]

Don't SAEs get aggresive and rather large......?
Yea, I have a 75 gallon for my pleco.

 

[Bananariot]

Regular plecs will eat shrimp. They poop a lot and have no business in small tanks. SAEs will probably also eat some shrimp.

I would either go ottos or no fish at all. I would buy a scraper and just do it that way. Shrimp also like grazing on the algae glass if you leave it like that

 

[Newman]

No, the point is to get the SAEs for a fish tank, never for a shrimp tank. they will grow up to 4" within the first two years probably. they start out roughly one inch or slightly more when you buy them. at that stage they are the best functioning algae eaters. they will tackle just about any algae. otos are pretty useless in comparison and are way weaker so they can't get much outside of some brown diatoms and other film algae.

SAEs will not be aggressive if you get 5 or a group of them. they keep to themselves, and dont bother other fish at all. they're rather skittish too. They are not as a aggressive as flying foxes and no where near as much as the infamous chinese algae eater. SAEs are not aggressive at all when they're young. I really recommend them to anyone with a large enough tank with plants for algae control. you probably can't get better fish for algae.

o and the max sized ones i saw were barely 7" likely very old too by the time they get to that kind of size.
otocinclus are good to permanently house in a shrimp tank i think...

 

[Kinection]

I just blasted my taiwan moss to kill the
algae, and the moss is completely clean!
I have a different theory to how the moss
got the algae. Previously this tank was for
my hatchling turtle, and he produced THE
MOST waste I've ever seen in my history
of pets. (seriously) I think when I'm doing water
changes, the waste gets shot up and goes onto
the moss. While that happens, its probably too
much nutrients, so the algae started to grow on
it. I did a 90% water change... lets hope the shrimp
don't die... I didn't even notice how low the water was
until I finished. (LOL) I decided to take out all the
river rock, so it would lower the amount of algae
in the tank. Good idea? I decided to go with Otos
though, I don't want to harm my 5 berried Fire reds.

 

[Newman]

yes those otos should be fine but the moss might die if you blasted it with peroxide or excel. if it was just cyanobacteria and you turkey basted it off, then thats a different story.