Good scavengers

[tinkerpuppet]

I'm almost ready to move some fish into my 10gal. I will have four male guppies and a betta. Any suggestions for a good scavenger that will help take care of the left over food bits and maybe help with algae?

I was thinking red cherry shrimp, but apparently they're $5 each at the LFS (Big Al's in Calgary). I was figuring maybe about 10 shrimp, and I have no interest in paying $50 when I hear so many others get them at a fraction of that price, so that idea is out, lol! Also, not sure if the betta would eat them?

So then I was thinking either Oto's or Cory's? But I've been reading that Cory's should be in groups of 5 or 6, and I think that may be to many for my little tank. Not sure if Oto's need the same number or if they'd be okay with maybe 1 or 2?

I'm a little wary of snails as I have an apple snail that was supposed to be non-plant eating, yet turned out to be the type that does eat plants (destroyed all my java fern). I love him dearly, so he'll be going to live in one of my stepdads tanks. I would love snails again though, is there a better type that is for sure non-plant eating?

I also love the little african dwarf frogs, but not sure how well they do as scavengers. But they sure are adorable!!

Any suggestions? I'm open to pretty much anything! Thanks :ssmile:

[Northernguy]

Shrimp are your best bet for cleaning.
Have you tried talking to breeders?
Send Wild Turkey a pm and ask about his.He has some nice ones.

[HorrorShowRot]

I have got a bunch of apple snails and pond snails in my 75 gallon planted. They really don't touch any of my plants and if they do it doesn't harm them. I would go for apple snails they look good and are relativly easy to care for if the water qualitys good and they get enough calcium for there shells.

[cer]

Shrimp would definetly be a great scavenger. I used snails but they were not that effective.

[troy]

The betta will eat red cherry shrimp. You could try amano shrimp. I have kept an amano shrimp with a betta for over half a year now.

[Northernguy]

If you do decide omn an apple snail make sure you get a gold one.I have two dark apple snails and they look at plants as if they were a salad buffet.lol
Hornswort is a big part of its preferred diet!

[wolf_eyes]

I would try to either contact someone on this forum or to go onto aquabid.com. There are people that sell cherry shrimp for a little more than $1 a piece plus you have free priority shipping. If you do get them this way, you will have to drip acclimate them to get them used to your water for 4 or so hours but this isn't a big problem. I got a group of 30 this way and they do great traveling priority, I had none die on the way. As troy said though I would be a little nervous about the betta eating them. My female betta ate one of my big female shrimp, rather ruthlessly too, before I moved her out of the tank. As an alternative you can try Amano or Ghost shrimp. Both of them are bigger and less vibrant so your betta may ignore them. Amano are labeled as the best algae eating shrimp. Mine do a good job picking off the wood. The problem is they can be a little hard to find and will probably be 2-3 bucks a piece if you get them in a store. The ones I bought were $2, but my store has buy one, get one free on freshwater animals so I got them at a good deal. Ghost shrimp are easier to find, but are more interested in scavenging than algae, though they will eat both in my experience. They are much easier to find and are about 33¢ at pet stores. Big chains like petsmart, petco... heck even wallmart sells them and most local stores will sell them too. Ask for freshwater feeder shrimp at local fish stores though as this is what they are usually sold for.

[HeatherB]

My gold apple snail left all my plants alone- but I wouldn't try any kind of expensive shrimp with that betta, or the guppies for that matter! Ghost shrimp are my shrimp of choice, and they are only like, 10 cents or so. Good considering my halfmoon betta recently went on a killing spree and killed oh...4 of the 10 or so shrimp he was sharing his tank with.