The Best Algae Eaters For Your Aquarium Fish Tank: The Good, The Bad, and The Useless.

Hey Everyone. We wanted to mention Flag fish are bred in Florida for the trade and were out of stock at the time of the show, so we had to shoot without them…they are terrific nibblers of green filamentous algae shoots, and we will give them some time on the next taping!

This is an excellent video reference!! The information is comprehensive and echoes what you’ll see on many other platforms and books. I appreciate your time and experience putting this video together. Great job!!

Randy! You're a great speaker, thanks for the info! Just planted my carpet seeds for my first planted tank. 10gal bowl. Putting a list together so this was helpful!

my experience was, that rosy barbs are very effective against filamentous algae, one eosy barb is enough for a 2 ft tank. Black molly is often used in marine tanks to control algae too. The problem with SAE is sometimes they can become aggressive and are a headache to catch if your tank is heavily planted.

I had 5 neocardina shrimp in my 20 gallon originally. I like to let algae grow on the black wall of my aquarium for the fish to pick at if they want to, but 1 of my shrimp hatched at least 20 new shrimp and now they are making quick work of that wall. You probably just need a large number of them to be “useful” in an aquarium

This is an amazingly well-produced video - thanks so much!

Very informative video and straight to the point, you've earned a new subscriber. I hope to see your channel grow!!

12k views in 4 days that impressive man. Only In the intro and I can already tell the video deserves the views

I have had a lot of success with farawalla twig catfish and whiptail cats. They do really well at keeping my algae under control. These species are a bit harder to find, but they do a great job

Plants plants and plants defeat algae more then anything especially floating ones 👍

Thanks for the help on this problem

The Siamese Algae Eater species name is actually Crossocheilus and Siamensis is actually a subspecies. The other species members look similar (and aren’t the Flying Fox, different species as you mentioned) and some are better algae eaters than C. Siamensis. In my experience, C. Langei and C. Reticulatus are algae eating powerhouses and more effective than C. Siamensis. All of which are peaceful and are great in community tanks. Also, Hillstream Loaches aren’t the only Loaches to eat algae. But Sewellia Lineolata (true Reticulated Hillstream) do have a different body from Gastromyzon Zebrinus (Striped Borneo Loach shown in the video). Although my favorite algae eating loach is the Panda Loach (Yaoshania Pachychilus).

I have been using nerites snails for a while now and they do a awesome job

Great, practical advice. Thanks!

I have sw tank,i put mollies and he doing great job 👍

I had a Silver Flying Fox (Crossocheilus reticulatus) and he was fantastic as far as algae eaters goes, including hair algae. Looks like a Siamese Algae Eater, but has a black dot where the tail fin starts instead of the black stripe. He was extremely territorial though. Any fish that searched for food in the substrate was an enemy (especially the ones of his own species). And both The Siamese algae eater and the Silver flying fox get big. Mine was about 15 cm (6 inches).

Great video Detroit

Hi there, enjoyed your video. Wanted to share that I actually have bred Oto's. Just to preface, I had no idea it was going on nor how to recreate it , but it happened. Shared on reddit with some photos too! I guess I was just lucky but I had a very heavily planted (dutch style) planted tank with 2 otos, some cherry shrimp and some chili rasporas. One day I almost freaked out because I thought I had hydras (had them once, was not fun to get rid of). Looked closer, and turns out it wasnt hydras stuck to the glass, but baby oto's!. All in all I counted about 21. Out of the 21, about 5 made it to adulthood. Apparently it's pretty rare for Oto's to breed in captivity, but just here to share that it definitely does happen!

Just found your channel and I love it! Thanks for sharing knowledge ❤ keep the info coming!

I keep two types of snails in my ponds and aquariums i have never have to scrub off anything.. Excess food and plant matter are well taken care of.. I often have to sacrifice a few fr population control