NO WAY - I have 5 bristlenose and they are constantly working to clean the sides. Now I will say they are rather stupid because all the leftovers are on the ground, I have no algae or anything on the walls. I love those guys - mine are nearly full size or they are all female (I see very few bristles on any of them). Now, if you want to see messy get a few DoJo loaches - reportedly they only grow in size related to the aquarium they are in but I have 4. 3 of the 4 are 12-15" LONG and about the size of a Quarter around, the 4th one is only about 8" long and skinny. When they poop it comes out like a huge puff of yellow clouds (or maybe they are just farting - they have multiple swim bladders, including in their rear end. I was lucky enough to give one CPR. She's the biggest and my only female I think. I was cleaning their disgusting tank and heard a log of noise in the bucket full of DoJo's behind me and they had all surrounding the big one that was floating belly up - (I have NEVER seen such a bonded group of fish - do other fish exibit this much affection towards each other?) = so I pulled her out of the bucked and blew straight in her mouth. She jumped and went flying accross the room, walking on her two front fins, (They can actually be out of water for hours - that's why they have multiple swim bladders). I put her back in the bucket, this time with an air bubbler to get more oxygen in there. She went belly up again so I set her on my lap and squeezed in on her sides and then pressed down on her chest where I figured her heart would be (this is how we resuscitated rats when I was in Graduate school- I'm not sure it would work on all fish - they have to be a certain shape., it does work with a dog but you have to almost pound on most dogs chests, especially lab size or larger) . She came back alive and started swimming for about 15 minutes then went belly-up again. So I successfully resuscitated her AGAIN. And she'd go back to swimming until the next episode. I was trying to get their tank clean - but had to stop about every 15 minutes a resuscitate her. Over a course of 4 hours I kept her alive and got there tank clean. By then she hadn't had an episode in quite a while so I put them all to bed in their clean tank. Woke up the next morning and she was still alive. My feel good story for the day. My husband and I once watched (briefly) a doctor try to resuscitate a very large man. He actually climbed on top of him and with all his strength with one hand on top of the other came down on that mans chest, over and over. Sweat was pouring off the Doctor who was a pretty husky guy himself. I heard later the guy didn't make it. But I bet he had some broken ribs. When my mom was in a care home she was very slowly dying, it was grotesque just to see her - due to cancer years before she lost her vocal cords and so she had to breathe through her trachea which I could barely stand to clean but it was always gross and dirty and the nurses I guess couldn't stand to do it either (one said she didn't know how) so I came by everyday and it almost made me vomit each time and I just wished she would die soon because she didn't know she was gross looking. I had to show the nurses also how to use the suction machine because if too much mucus got caught in there she wouldn't be able to breathe. I wondered how would she feel if she did know how repulsed others were - she would feel terribly embarrassed I know. My mother had been beautiful and always dressed very well and was well accessorized. She had in her living will that she wanted to be resuscitated no matter what. But I had power of attorney so I changed her status to "DNR" so one day they were giving her a bed bath and when they turned her back from being on her side she had stopped breathing and they hadnt noticed. I got there about 10 minutes later. I've always wondered if I would have tried to save her after all - I mean if I can blow into a loaches mouth surely I could tolerate blowing in her trachea (actually I don't think I could - but sometime you surprise yourself. She hadnt eaten or drank in about 3 days so I'm glad she didn't suffer much longer, Man I have dreadful stories tonight. I'm in Palliative care now and it has made a huge difference in my life. For some reason she and I are no longer able to show much affection towards each other - which I don't understand because when she was a baby and toddler I held and kissed her constantly. Something changed when she was about 8 yrs old (when I divorced her father and then a year later remarried to a man she didn't get along with) - so I guess she never forgave me for the divorce even tho she's told me mutiple times that she would have divorced him too (he cheated on me a lot and she usually figured it out before I did) For some reason her father and I have no trouble hugging and once he even told me he loved me and was an idiot for letting me go. (Unfortunately my current husband overheard part of that and then accused me of having an affair with my ex-husband lol. Men are such jealous creatures but most of them that I know have no problem cheating on their wives - except my second husband that I'm 99.9 % sure he never cheated we rode together for work and rode home together - -the only time he worked really late it was for year 2000 computer issues and I was there too testing my offices systems. Maybe got lucky with one of the nurses (he had 8 heart attacks) but i think they'd be afraid of him dying LOL oh well Sorry I was so morbid tonight.
