Bottom Feeders

[Mighty Prawn]

Well I previously had 20 ghost shrimp, now I seem to be down to none at all. I don't know what happened to them, probably all died and got eaten by the live ones when my nitrates were off the charts. But now I have none at all.

Now I always see shrimp referred to as algae eaters, but my ghosts seemed to only like actual foods. They loved blood worms and shrimp/algae pellets.

What would you guys reccomend as a peaceful shrimp to live in my tank?

I currently have 10 Platies, 1 baby platy (only one that survived out of god knows how many fry), 3 dojo loaches and perhaps an 11th platy if my sick one survives in the hospital tank. I plan on maybe adding 5-6 rainbows, but nothing more. Was previously going to add some cory's but will wait until I get a much larger tank before I get a really wild community tank going on.

Are there any peaceful larger shrimp? Or at least, easier seen? I wouldn't mind having ghost shrimp again, I just hope they do some algae cleaning at least.

And what, if shrimp aren't a good idea, would be another decent algae eater? I've heard that chinese algae eaters can be nasty, and plecos grow to be enormous (all types, or are there some dwarf species?).

Thanks in advance.

-Hideo

[Tanker]

I have bristlenose plecos (max at 6") and amano shrimp. They do a decent job... each one complements the other and between them they get the job done.

[Toirtis]

I will second that.....bristlenose are tops.

[Mighty Prawn]

Bristlenose hmmm... I won't find them sucking on one of my fish in the morning, will I?

They look pretty cool. What kind of population should I keep them in, is just 1 fine, or will I need a few for its happiness?

-Hideo

[Tanker]

I have one in the tank by itself... but I never see him, just the tip of his tail sticking out of his hiding spot. They are not really an "out and about" fish... so judging their health and happiness is tougher than say a tetra. Obviously keeping one alone hampers 'breeding activities' but often a single tank will just not produce enough algae to feed a BN, let alone a group of them. If it's planted, you may never need one, period. In my 45 gallon I have a 3" BN, and 2 amanos... and they keep everything but hair algae completely gone.

From my experience, the only fish my BN ever bothered or fought with was another pleco when I tried to temporarily keep two in there. Figured there would be lots of hiding places (7 pieces of driftwood in that tank) but they instantly found each other and started scrapping. Ottos are notorious for slime-sucking, however, so be wary of them if they get hungry or bored... although I have kept them with no such troubles in the past (currently I do not have any, the last one died when we put him in a tank that was coated with algae... he ate until his stomach literally exploded).

[arixonbarnes]

I found amano shrimp (until one of my experiments killed them all) and zebra snails (lost some of those in the experiment too) work well together to keep the algae under control.

Ameca Splendens work very well but they are hard on other fish.