Truly herbivorous fish

[LobsterOfJustice]

My tank's a 37 gallon well established tank with tons of loaches, dwarf puffers, knifefish, hatchets, oddballs, etc. Extra livestock info in the link in my signature. I have a slight algae problem (hair), and was wondering if there are any fish that will actually eat it. I have a clown pleco but he's never eaten algae for as long as I've had him and my rubber lipped pleco cleans the glass a little, but it doesn't make a noticeable difference. I know the easiest way to remove it is limit lights and excess nutrients, but I'm not keen on changing the lighting cycle (the tank has the same natural light cycle as my area), and love feeding them. It's not a big problem, and I could just pull it out of the tank every once in a while, but I try to keep my hands out of the tank as much as possible. Water changes are about 5 gallons a week, temperature is 77-78. The algae is on the plastic plants in medium and high flow areas. Any fish that can do well in my tank and will readily eat the algae? Thanks.


Dont worry, the knifefish gets a bigger tank when he needs one.

 

[CFC]

My tank's a 37 gallon well established tank with tons of loaches, dwarf puffers, knifefish, hatchets, oddballs, etc. Extra livestock info in the link in my signature. I have a slight algae problem

The cause of the problem is right there in the first two lines of your post, the tank is overstocked and the huge bioload is giving the algea a endless supply of nutrients, adding more fish to deal with the algea is just going to make matters worse. The obvious solution is to take some of the fish back but i understand that most people arent really prepared to do this unless absolutly nessasary so the next solution is to do more water changes, with a stocking level that high i would recomend starting to do 20% water changes twice a week.

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

Okay, thanks. I know the tank is by definition "overstocked" but I go by the rule of "if you can keep them healthy and happy, your fine" and most of the fish I have in the tank have been with me for many years with no problems. I'll increase the amount of water I change weekly.