Catfish With Small Fish - Advice

[johnson.ce2010]

Hi everyone

I have a 60 litre tank with small fish at the moment;
ember tetra
pygmy corys
bumble bee horn snails

I've got a bit of an algae problem so I wanted to get a decent size catfish to help. The pygmy corys don't seem to do much good, but I didn't get them just to clean the tank (cute little buggers!). The snails do an excellent job of cleaning the glass, but they don't really clean my plants - they just lay eggs all over them.

So I was looking at getting a bristlenose catfish to help. I've looked at ottos too and I guess these would be best in my tank but I'm not sure how good they are at cleaning. Is there a small bristlenose that won't eat my small fish? I've read on here that catfish will eat whatever will fit in their mouths...

If all else fails I'll get a couple of ottos and a couple of amano shrimp as the algae is mainly hair algae.

Please advise!

 

[Wills]

Ottos are possibly your best bet but I would always try and live by a rule "dont get a fish just to do a job" because otherwise after an algae out break and a snail outbreak you have a tank of Bristlenoses and Loaches which is great if you like them lol.

Hair algae is tricky to get rid of though and there are a few other methods you could try. I have had success at beating algae outbreaks by blacking out the tank for a week or two, no lights and no contact with sun light (dark sheet over tank) and then replanting with really hungry plants to soak up the nutrients before the algae does.

While there are a lot of predatory catfish from all over the world, there are not many plecs that would need to be considered as predatory. Though I would not get a Bristlenose for a 60 liter tank, they get quite big and would create more waste than all of your current stocking put together. If you can find them Pitbull Plecs are nice and small but I think a small group of Ottos could help

Wills

 

[kizno1]

Like Wills said you should get a catfish just to clean algea. The best way to solve and algae problem is find out what corsing it and fix it that way. Catfish wise though if you wasnt bothered about them cleaning algae a small group of anchor catfish would be spot on for the tank and stocking since they stay very small.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Two fish species I know of that love hair algae are Butterfly Goodeids (which need a species only tank) and Florida Flagfish, which should be fine in a 60l. Not sure if adding two or three would be pushing your stocking a little, so perhaps just a single one?