Onoma1
Member
Please refrain from snorts of incredulous laughter when reading this post.
Ok in the mists of time when I first set up the first community tank for my kids I was sold a small ‘algae eating’ ‘suckerfish’ by the rather friendly young salesperson in the fish shop/ pet supermarket. I was told it was a great community fish and just ate algae - nothing but algae - it's a herbivore - think of it as the 'cow of the fish world' they said. Last year when I converted my ‘kids’ tank into a test aquascape (n.b. after the kids went to Uni) the rest of the fish were re-homed, however, I kept this ‘algae eater’ and indeed was quite pleased with the fact that this useful fish had been nurtured to a ripe old age and a decent size. I hadn't seen much of it over the proceeding years, however, assumed that was benevolently eating algae during the nights and then returning to its hiding space to digest the night's bounty.
Catching it from the community tank was rather a pain as despite it's size it has Houdini like abilities to escape and I ended up draining the tank and putting the tank on its edge to net the thing. I transferred it across, to the larger new spacious tank and it disappeared behind the hardscape of larva rock. I didn’t see it for a few months and felt rather guilty as I thought that the trauma of the transfer had killed it.
Early this morning I got up and to my delight I saw the fish resting in the tank. However, I swear that the fish looked directly at me before wiggling back into the jungle of plants and into a lair at the midst of the hardscape in quite a menacing manner. This didn't seem the behaviour of a placid algae eater. I thought that as researched all the other fish that I had I should now perhaps check up on the fish to learn more about how I should care for it.
Ok – so what I have is a mature and fairly large sucking loach ‘Gyrinocheilus aymonieri/ Psilorhynchus aymonieri. A quick search on internet reveals that this an aggressive territorial fish that will destroy delicate plant and as an adult will be less interested in algae eating and more interested in terrorizing the other occupants of the tank (https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/databank/sucking-loach-chinese-algae-eater-). It’s an omnivore and will suck/ eat other small slow moving fish and shrimp.
On the positive side my angst about not being able to sustain a breeding population of cherry shrimp is now relieved. It wasn’t the KH, PH, water temperature or feeding regime that led to the poor things disappearing one by one instead it was the fact that they were in fact fish food (very expensive fish food). Rather like the 1987 Predator films one by one the poor sods were picked off by something hiding in the vegetation. On the negative side the sodding thing has eaten 15 cherry shrimp, three amano shrimp and is probably at this very minute stalking the remaining three shrimp, eyeing up my rather shy green neon tetra (now I know why they are shy) and possibly planning to assault my innocent, playful and rather delightful Otos. After which it's probably deciding which one of my plants my delicate and rather expensive plants it should trash today. While I may be slightly over-reacting I think it has to go.
Now to the point of the post. What should I do? I think that I will need to strip down my tank to the substrate and try and net the thing. Is there any alternative way of dealing this this - should I just let it be? Almost any advice, comments welcome.
Ok in the mists of time when I first set up the first community tank for my kids I was sold a small ‘algae eating’ ‘suckerfish’ by the rather friendly young salesperson in the fish shop/ pet supermarket. I was told it was a great community fish and just ate algae - nothing but algae - it's a herbivore - think of it as the 'cow of the fish world' they said. Last year when I converted my ‘kids’ tank into a test aquascape (n.b. after the kids went to Uni) the rest of the fish were re-homed, however, I kept this ‘algae eater’ and indeed was quite pleased with the fact that this useful fish had been nurtured to a ripe old age and a decent size. I hadn't seen much of it over the proceeding years, however, assumed that was benevolently eating algae during the nights and then returning to its hiding space to digest the night's bounty.
Catching it from the community tank was rather a pain as despite it's size it has Houdini like abilities to escape and I ended up draining the tank and putting the tank on its edge to net the thing. I transferred it across, to the larger new spacious tank and it disappeared behind the hardscape of larva rock. I didn’t see it for a few months and felt rather guilty as I thought that the trauma of the transfer had killed it.
Early this morning I got up and to my delight I saw the fish resting in the tank. However, I swear that the fish looked directly at me before wiggling back into the jungle of plants and into a lair at the midst of the hardscape in quite a menacing manner. This didn't seem the behaviour of a placid algae eater. I thought that as researched all the other fish that I had I should now perhaps check up on the fish to learn more about how I should care for it.
Ok – so what I have is a mature and fairly large sucking loach ‘Gyrinocheilus aymonieri/ Psilorhynchus aymonieri. A quick search on internet reveals that this an aggressive territorial fish that will destroy delicate plant and as an adult will be less interested in algae eating and more interested in terrorizing the other occupants of the tank (https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/databank/sucking-loach-chinese-algae-eater-). It’s an omnivore and will suck/ eat other small slow moving fish and shrimp.
On the positive side my angst about not being able to sustain a breeding population of cherry shrimp is now relieved. It wasn’t the KH, PH, water temperature or feeding regime that led to the poor things disappearing one by one instead it was the fact that they were in fact fish food (very expensive fish food). Rather like the 1987 Predator films one by one the poor sods were picked off by something hiding in the vegetation. On the negative side the sodding thing has eaten 15 cherry shrimp, three amano shrimp and is probably at this very minute stalking the remaining three shrimp, eyeing up my rather shy green neon tetra (now I know why they are shy) and possibly planning to assault my innocent, playful and rather delightful Otos. After which it's probably deciding which one of my plants my delicate and rather expensive plants it should trash today. While I may be slightly over-reacting I think it has to go.
Now to the point of the post. What should I do? I think that I will need to strip down my tank to the substrate and try and net the thing. Is there any alternative way of dealing this this - should I just let it be? Almost any advice, comments welcome.
