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I am setting up a 90 gallon tank within the next month. I will probably move either a bristlenose or pitball to the tank. I would like to get a second pleco to help clean. What would be a really good looking pleco (striking) to get that would do a respectable job in cleaning algae?

This is a very subjective question. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: you may find something that I adore completely hideous. Plus, there are thousands of species.
Amanda

I like albino BN. They are the best algae eaters and look good, in my opinion. you might like LDA08, but i am not sure if they are good algae eaters. I like florida bred albinos, as they are the best algae eaters, better then tank bred

bronzefly, I understand what you are saying so I'll tell you what I like. I am looking for color contrast. If I could make the zebra pleco a full time algae eater, I would pick one up tomorrow.

Hope that helps.

Unfortunately, nearly all really good algae eaters are some combination of the following:
1. Growing really huge.
2. Generally brown/grey in colour.

This is because algae generally only grow in places where there's lots of sunlight - shallow water in other words, which in turn means that the fish eating the algae needs to be pretty good at hiding in this environment. Following this through, the fish needs to be pretty drab in colour, because it would not be able to hide well if it's brightly coloured.

Brightly coloured species are this that live at quite deep levels - for instance lives at around 15 meters depth. Not much algae available at this depth, because it would be almost entirely dark down there.

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Mats

As always the best little algae eaters/pound is not on the list. I would try to get some of those zebra otocinclus. Since they are small you can get severeal of them for the algae cleanup. I read somewhere that 4 to 6 otos are good for every 20 gallons, so you could have 10 or 12 of them depending what else you would have. Careful on size of other fish...

Also, the long-finned bristlenoses are very, very nice to look at.

And there are always variations on the rubberlipped plecos. A LFS around here (Detroit, MI) sells some spotted rubberlipped plecos.

But as always, there are only 700 plus species of Loricardae...HAPPY HUNTING!

Thanks,

Scott

Zebra Oto's are very beautiful, and if the other occupants of the tank are either small-ish or not eating other fish, they would be fine.

Rubberlip pleco's = Chaetostoma species - These come from higher altitude in the Andes, and they require cooler temperature and high dissolved oxygen levels. Great algae-eaters, but you have to be careful that they don't get low on oxygen, because they aren't quite as able to cope as most other pleco's.

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Mats