Algae eater

[Tom]

Is there an African catfish who would be a good algae eater for a 75?

Thanks,
Tom

[Birger]

There are not many African catfish that make good algae eaters for a tank unfortunately...any of the sucker mouth cats from Africa are usually "aufwuchs" feeders and are still in the need specialized care category.
There would be more algae eating cichlids than catfish depending on which part of Africa you have fish from.

There are two ways I can recommend one is to use a common form of Ancistrus (south american)which can handle a variety of conditions.
The other is to look into using African Garra species as an algae eater in an African Tank, this is a cyprinid, the only problem with this they are hard to get hold of, even here you may end up not using African fish the most common Garra's out there in the market being Asian and even then not that common.

Birger

[Tom]

Thanks for the reply. I'm basically a Syno nut so the one Syno I was thinking about was pleurops. Any opinions on that?

[Richard B]

Pleurops is a delicate omnivourous grazer & as such does eat a little algae but not much really

[sidguppy]

pleurops delicate?
that's new. I always found this was a fairly tough fish

very peaceful, yes, but not fragile

there IS a Synodontis wich does graze almost as good as a pleco: Synodontis contracta. that one however IS delicate and doesn't combine at all with cichlids of the nastier kind. it needs very clean soft and slightly acidic water, kept as a group and very docile tankmates

I've kept a group for quite some time and the tank was spotless. they even ate all the pencilbrush algae.

[Richard B]

pleurops delicate?
that's new. I always found this was a fairly tough fish

very peaceful, yes, but not fragile

Yes a tough fish, i meant delicate in the way a bigger fish can gently & precisely move around whilst feeding, like tracing it's way around the periphery of a flowerpot; slow, methodical & precise.

[sidguppy]

ah yes. it is

it's not a boisterous fish and it does move around in a subtle careful way.

[Richard B]

I seem to recall someone in the CAGB at one of the open shows describing it as a "hippo doing slow-motion ballet" Was it John Mead, or maybe Chris Ralf...oh i dunno who it was but it seems quite apt!