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Siamese algae eater or Gluteralderhyde?

F

ForestDave

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12 Nov 2020
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Forest of Dean
Hi.
How effective are SAE's please? I read one article saying they were amazing.

My tank is 5 months old now and I'm starting to get a bit more algae than usual. There are various reasons, the main one probably being I added more fish and the increase in waste has effected the balance. I used glute in the early days of the tank but my shrimp and rabbit snails didn't seem to like it much so I stopped. It was fine up until about a month ago. I've since started a new tank for the rabbits as they didn't seem to like much in my main tank glute or no glute and they are much happier elsewhere now. So now I am contemplating either getting some siamese algae eaters to clean up the algae or going back to using glute, (whilst also working on the water/fiter/pipe cleanliness/flow/nutrient and lighting duration/levels).

I'm not sure whether I have too many fish? It's a 200L tank and I have a FX6 filter loosely packed with media to ensure good flow.
Here's the stock list.
15 Cardinals
4 Red Robin gourami's
8 Neon rainbow's
5 Otto's
2 Orange bristlenose plec's
150 yellow shrimp (RCS)
1 Bamboo shrimp
2 Armoured shrimp
 
ForestDave said:
How effective are SAE's please?
Click to expand...
I had a few in 500l until they got a taste for my RCS, took a while for them to get the taste for shrimp and was OK at first as I didn't have RCS. I have read they get lazy when bigger as well and I was trying to increase my RCS numbers at the time and struggling. As soon as the SAE was relocated the RCS population increase pretty fast-plus they wasn't hiding from the SAE.
Seen one of the SAE going round tank hunting RCS down and picking them off.
 
Zeus. said:
I had a few in 500l until they got a taste for my RCS, took a while for them to get the taste for shrimp and was OK at first as I didn't have RCS. I have read they get lazy when bigger as well and I was trying to increase my RCS numbers at the time and struggling. As soon as the SAE was relocated the RCS population increase pretty fast-plus they wasn't hiding from the SAE.
Seen one of the SAE going round tank hunting RCS down and picking them off.
Click to expand...
Cheers Zeus.
I might give the glute another bash then!
Cheers
BTW do you think I have too many creatures in the tank for it’s size?
 
Compatability apart SAEs are great for algae prevention note that ADA always one or more juveniles in most set ups. They do grow though and are the Border Collie of the fish soon learning to take all the general fish foods on offer as they age. How about Ottocinclus l have 4 in my low tech reduced algae to minimum levels
 
The only algae l seem to have in that tank it small amounts of bba mainly on one or tops of java fern and on the internal filter . Managable and whether thats because of the ottos not sure. Sometimes think the ottos my need more food so added blanched spinach every few days and crush a algae tablet up so the Corys dont have it all. When l had SAEs its the leaf grazing as much as algae removal reducing biofilm
 
The SAE is a beast of an algae eater. You have to make sure you have the real mecoy as there are imposters out there. Mine is fully grown and eats all food. He/she grazes on algae on all day. They do better in shoals but I only have one. I also have cherry shrimp in my 30g tank. I personally wouldn't have an SAE in anything smaller as they get big.
For some reason it doesn't like my Glowlight tetras. All other fish fine.
BBA is my worse algae. Thankfully I don't have it in my 30g which is about 3 years old now. It did try to take hold but didn't last long
 
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