Newbie after a catfish!

[stiffone13]

hello people! ive got a 160 lt tank with 6 glowlight tetras and 3 panda corys (going to get 3 more as they are great little fish! im after adding a catfish to help keeping the algae, all the ones ive looked at get to big so anys tips plz

[talldutchie]

In my opinion it's best to tackle algae at the source. Not to buy an animal just to eat algae. And even if you do, it all depends on what kind of algae it is.
The point I'm trying to make is that "catfish" are fish and deserve a proper diet and some appropriate tank furniture.

The ancistrus family, or bristlenose in English, features about 6 species commonly sold. All eat mainly algae and vegetables and none of these common species would get too big for your tank.

[madagascariensis]

There also are catfish called otocinclus that are even smaller than the ancistrus and grow only to two inches, but unless you have a planted tank ancistrus will do fine.
The type of algae will also dictate the effectiveness of any algae eating catfish. Soft algae that covers a surface(diatoms, green algae) will be consumed by sucker mouth cats but they won't touch filamentous algae like hair algae, for instance.

[stiffone13]

thxs guys! my tank is planted up but with a lot of young plants and think i will try and attack the green stuff! but i will check out these catfish as they do look good

[Strider199]

I agree with the post above about not relying on a fish to take care of an algae problem, but if your into having a pleco in that tank, I would choose a rubber lipped bulldog pleco for your 160 litre. They love to have some fresh cucumber or zucchini occasionally to supplement there algae diet. Wafers are also appreciated. This site has a wealth of info in the catfish section on different algae eating catfish,
http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/aqua...splay.php?f=60

Check it out.