Leftover Eaters

[123justin]

Hey guys, I have a 20g tank currently with 5 diamon neon tetras (very very small)

I'm wondering what bottom feeder or other fish/animal to get that will eat the left over food that floats to the bottom of the tank.

Would a bunch of ghost shrimp do the trick? I dunno what it is about ghost shrimp, but they make me laugh.

Can you suggest any catfish or bottom feeders that would go well in a 20g tank? If so, what species and how many?

I plan on getting more small community schooling fish.

 

[Feesh]

A small shoal of cory cats should do the trick, I think they prefer sand though. They're generally peaceful from what I've heard..

 

[One_Trick_Pony]

yeah a group of cories would do great

 

[rdd1952]

Ghost shrimp would do fine too. They are basically scavengers like corys. They DO NOT eat algae though just in case you were wondering. Another plus to ghost shrimp is that they don't produce much of a bio load at all so 4 or 5 wouldn't really effect your stocking level. I have heard that you can have problems with them in a new tank but I put mine in 2 weeks after it was set up and they have done great.

 

[sinistral]

Ghost shrimp would do fine too. They are basically scavengers like corys. They DO NOT eat algae though just in case you were wondering.

Just one point about this: IME ghost shrimp actually do eat algae. I kept 6 in a 5.5g aquarium that had a good supply of algae in it, and they did work on it rather well. I'm sure they aren't as good as otocinclus sp., just to cite an example off the top of my head.

There's a long thread about this in the krib archives. The consensus is that ghost shrimp are primarily scavengers as rdd1952 suggests, and that they will eat algae effectively if added to tanks in large numbers, and if their other food sources are kept to a minimum.

 

[spAcE mOnkEy]

Yeah, a bunch of ghost shrimp would work! And as sinistral said about algae, i have seen ones that i have kept eating algae. Even though they were eating it, i didnt see a differnece in the tank from them eating the algae. In my experience, raphael catfish work great, but they get fairly large and would eat your tetras. Raphaels are best used with larger aggressive fish.