hello, I don't know much about fish, i do know that most will eat nematodes as well as maybe copepods but particularly nemarodes or white worms, but can you suggest me a fish species which are small that aggressively eat them of the glass, from the water column etc, considering rasbora,sparkling gourami's or guppies as i have heard these are aggressive insectivores, any other fish that I'm missing that will actively seek them out a devour the them from being seen in the tank.
small fish that will aggressively eat nematodes.
1 - 9 of 9 Posts
Joined
·
1,414 Posts
Well, how big is your tank, and what else is inside the tank?
Joined
·
1,414 Posts
And what else is inside the tank?
Are there bugs in it currently and you want to get rid of them?
One consideration is the bugs have to be small enough. Even an insectivore fish is not going to eat them if they are even a little over large. I have endlers and they were in a tank that was infested with those little amphipods. The big females would go after them but I saw many mouth them, then spit them out I think because they were just too large for them to eat. The males would not even try.
Unless the bugs are very very tiny Rasbora and Guppies may be too small. Gourami's are a possibility. I once posed the same question except for something that would eat fry (endlers don't eat their fry generally and so I quickly get overstocked) and considered as gourami, BUT I have shrimp too and anything that's going to go after fry is probably going to go after shrimp, at least juvenile ones and I want their numbers to increase. It's a delicate balance.
A side point, my experience with the otto cats is that they need some space. I had some in a 20G long and that seemed too small. They are skittish fish and move fast. In the 20G I was worried they ram into the tank sides when they freak out (like just doing something with substrate is enough to spook them into a giant leap). My opinion is they need at least a 30G and probably larger. Most recommend a shoal of at least 6 of them, otherwise they can be hiders.
One consideration is the bugs have to be small enough. Even an insectivore fish is not going to eat them if they are even a little over large. I have endlers and they were in a tank that was infested with those little amphipods. The big females would go after them but I saw many mouth them, then spit them out I think because they were just too large for them to eat. The males would not even try.
Unless the bugs are very very tiny Rasbora and Guppies may be too small. Gourami's are a possibility. I once posed the same question except for something that would eat fry (endlers don't eat their fry generally and so I quickly get overstocked) and considered as gourami, BUT I have shrimp too and anything that's going to go after fry is probably going to go after shrimp, at least juvenile ones and I want their numbers to increase. It's a delicate balance.
A side point, my experience with the otto cats is that they need some space. I had some in a 20G long and that seemed too small. They are skittish fish and move fast. In the 20G I was worried they ram into the tank sides when they freak out (like just doing something with substrate is enough to spook them into a giant leap). My opinion is they need at least a 30G and probably larger. Most recommend a shoal of at least 6 of them, otherwise they can be hiders.
I had a 10gal shrimp-only planted that ended up with nematode/worm things, some were quite large. a couple fancy guppies made good work of them. I'm sure they did a number on the shrimplets too so when worms seemed to be all gone for a while, they were moved back to my 55. Oh and I stopped overfeeding the shrimp, as I'm sure that made the worm problem worse.
1 - 9 of 9 Posts
Join the discussion
