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

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Let's talk about the best algae eaters for your aquarium fish tank. Algae can be a common problem in fish tanks, and having the right algae eaters can help keep your tank clean and balanced. We will rank the algae eaters into three categories: The Good, The Bad, and The Useless. Let's dive in!

Should out to @englishtime5327 for the excellent comment on our plant video.

#fishaquarium #algaeeater #aquariumtank

00:00 Welcome Back
00:25 The Bad
01:30 The Useless
04:00 The Good
06:11 Gobies
06:46 A very nice Loach
07:33 Catfish and Plecos
10:14 Our Favorite
10:58 Feeding Frenzy! (lol)
12:03 Special Announcement
12:44 Viewer Insights

[thefishfiles]

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!

[donutHOLE]

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

[donnarae]

I have a full grown chinese algae eater - very sweet and shy, never bothers anyone. In the same tank are 12 silver mollies and they keep the tank very clean. Thanks for the tip about adding a little salt to the tank for the mollies.

[Four-of-Six]

@ 5:40 mins. Those snails lay eggs in your tank, white tiny spots all over your aquarium. Hard to get rid of those spots which are very hard, looks like large grains of sand. The eggs will not hatch but some do, most of them will not. I had a couple that did hatch in my

[craigathonian]

In all my years of keeping aquarium fish, i was quite shocked at one species that i adopted from an owner who was threatening his wife, that he was gonna flush them down the toilet. At that time i didn't have any fish...just planted aquariums. As we all know, 'just plants' also means all kinds of algae. After introducing them into the aquarium i didn't have to do my weekly algae cleaning anymore. This fish was a Platy....and i'm not talking about the family in general, of which i have had many varieties, but they wouldn't be on this list. It has to be the "Sunset Platy" There were about 15 to 20, various ages/sizes, but they all cleaned up the 30 gal. tank in a weeks time. I was shocked ! Only because of the fact nobody in the professional hobby ever mentioned this one variety. They also never stopped or got board, of which i've heard can happen with a number of "good" algae eaters. One detail i noticed was that the younger fish were meticulous at cleaning delicate plants like the moss's & Myriophyllum's. In the future i might try out the "Gold Platy" since they are the closest looking genetically. On another note, it's very important to not overfeed the Amano shrimp with any food, as they will stop being good algae cleaners. Thanks for a great video, it reminded me of a few species that i forgot i wanted. 😎

[Aquascapealga]

In my tanks, neo caridina shrimps like to clean brown algae ( diatom) . They do a pretty good job at eating the algae

[barblenarf]

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!

[AllenHChang]

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.

[vivienleigh]

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).

[yvonnebagaman]

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

[belleaerials]

The nerite snails 🐌 are super effective algae eaters. You can literally see them scrape off the algae with their frighteningly human looking teeth 😬😆. Interestingly in my fish tank they also spend considerable time outside the water where they seem to also eat fungi and they even seem to sleep there hidden away in their shell. I think they can do that because of the high humidity above the water in my closed top aquarium. Wherever they graze they leave a perfect little path that shows that they graze pretty systematic. The weirdest thing about them is that occasionally they make an audible sound. It’s hard to describe the sound and it’s rare but it was audible outside the tank and they produce that sound when they’re above the water. The sound is somewhat similar to chirping but certainly not that loud and less high pitched.

[bridgetrooney]

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).

[joewest]

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

[ricardoramirez]

Great video! Looking forward to the Heico video.

[gillesdesilets]

My favorite algae eater is the Farlowella aka twig fish. They do a great job with cleaning a tank.

[Outside-InAquatics]

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

[BrendenEngelbrecht]

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

[douggiles]

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

[larryhenry]

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

[EKrger]

The molly was clearly the first to try the moss. I've found molly to be very effective at keeping algae at bay on plants, rocks, and other decor.