Killer Fish

hi i have 3 of these fish , i dont actually know their name , but i can describe them, they are about 2 inches long and are algae eaters apparently , they live on the bottom of the tank and look like minature sharks , wtih a black stripe right through the middle of them , however recently they have started to nip all the other fishes tails and are trying to eat them , hence i have lost 3 female beta's and 2 honey gouramis, what are my options here , why are they doing this ? and to save the rest o my tank , how and what is the most humane way of destroying them , cos i dont think its very fair on the stress levels of the other fish , when they are getting eating every hr of every day
and dont wish to lose any more of my fish
regards

I can't help ID the fish unfortunately, but if it were me, I would be looking to rehome the fish rather than killing them. Can you take them to your LFS? Or a friend with a tank? Someone on here may be willing to take them from you!

Remove the problem fish. As for ID of said problem fish... probably a chinese algae eating loach. I have one and they do tend to be a nuisance unless you have a decent size tank and lots of caves.

the local fish shop wont take em back , cos apparently they could be diseased and destroy their stock , if i take them out i have no where to put them , just dont know what to do with them anymore , seems cruel to just chuck em away ,

this is 1 of the offending fish , however there are 3 of them together

tweenage said:

this is 1 of the offending fish , however there are 3 of them together

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I stick with my original guess and say its a Chinese Algae Eating Loach. I could be wrong though. Btw if you want to keep more than one, be warned they're very territorial and will get very aggressive.

One thing that does make me think I'm wrong though, is you say these fish are nipping the others..... Do they have a visable mouth (eg jaws ets) or do they have a sucking pad??

Check out these links and see if they help you identify exactly which algae eater you have....

Chinese Algae Eater Picture
Oto algae eater
Siamese Algae Eater


Is there anyway you could give them their own tank? What about giving them to a neighbor or trying to sell them? Is there anyway you could put a divider in the tank to keep them separate for now? Do you have any other LFS's around you?

Try adding more hiding places for them, if you haven't already. Adding hiding spaces so they have their own place to hide will often help discourage them from attacking other fish in your tank.

2nd link dopesnt work , i think i have the 3rd one on ur list , have a few bog wood in the tank , but they dont hide just annoy the other fish and trying to eat em , cant afford another tank with heater and all that ,no neighbours have fish round here. dont really want cash for them as they didnt cost me very much money in the 1st place , as for the divider , im sure i could trap en in a small area of the tank>> but then what am i supposed to do with them? as i said petshop wont have em in case they are diseased

regards

If you don't want cash, sell them for free. Try posting in the buy, sell, swap section of this forum. Also check out Aquabid.com

(2nd link works fine for me, not sure what's up with that.)


p.s. i just changed the link this morning see if it works now...(the oto link

(2nd link works fine for me, not sure what's up with that.)

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i get unauthorised message on 2nd link.

tweenage can i ask what size tank you have and what the other tank mates are? for the time being is it possible to keep them in a breeding net?