Nikki Casali wrote:
Elaine T wrote:
Nikki Casali wrote:
Elaine T wrote:
Nikki Casali wrote:
OK, so moving on to plan B. I am finding the control of BBA
extremely time consuming. It's the most tenacious algae. Hell, I
don't even get green spot algae anymore. BBA grows very slowly, but
it still bugs me as it excludes me from keeping very slow growing
plants.
I have a spare 110 litre aquarium I wish to move all my fish into
from the 330 litre, temporarily. Given that the main tank will have
no fish in it, how far can I push a treatment to guarantee a kill
of BBA and still give the plants a fighting chance? For example,
how many days of blackout would be required, 3, 7, 14 days?? I
presume I'd stop all CO2 for that period.
Plan C is to strip the tank.
Nikki
I missed plan A so apologies if someone already suggested this. Is
there some reason you cannot find or keep Crossocheilus siamensis
(Siamese algae eaters or SAE)? They really, truly do eat BBA and
will keep it under control.
http://www.aquatic-gardeners.org/cyprinid.html describes the fish.
The article is 10 years old, and now there is a demand for the true
SAE so they are not difficult to find in LFS.
Oooh, it's complicated!
I have 1 Ruby Shark (4 years), 1 Redtail Shark (4 years) and 1
Harlequin Shark (4 months). They are all mortal enemies. No one told
me about the sheer pathological aggression of the Harlequin when I
got him. They just said he was the best algae eater around. My 2
older sharks just about tolerated each other. One became nocturnal.
When I introduced the Harlequin everything was fine until 2 weeks
later when all hell broke loose. One morning I found the Redtail
shivering in one corner, absolutely terrified! Mr Harlequin had
gained enough confidence within 2 weeks to begin savage
lyattackingit.Ihadfinally
found a fish more aggressive than a Redtail! The nocturnal Ruby Shark
wasn't stupid and decided to hibernate in one tight corner for most
of 24 hours. One day I even came across the Harlequin with its sucker
mouth clasped against one of my Angelfish. What?!
I removed the Harlequin and Redtail Sharks to the quarantine tank,
with a divider, permanently. I am now left with the less aggressive
Ruby Shark in the main tank.
Would the Ruby Shark tolerate a Crossocheilus siamensis? I'm running
out of quarantine tanks though!
Nikki
If your "harlequin shark" has a suckermouth, it is not a relative of
C. siamensis, L. bicolor (redtail shark) or E. frenatus (ruby shark).
None of these fish have suckermouths. It is most likely a dreaded
Chinese algae eater (CAE) or Gyrinocheilus aymonieri.
Yes, it looks very much like a variant of Labeo variegatus, which is the
one I have:
http://www.thatfishshop.com/findex/f...variegatus.htm
http://www.petresources.net/fish/cyprinid/gyr_aym.html CAE get very
aggressive as they grow, especially towards similarly shaped fish.
They have been rumored to feed on slimecoats of other fish as they
age, thus the angelfish sucking behavior.
If you look at some more pictures of G. aymonieri and that's indeed
what your "harlequin shark" is, I would return it to LFS. It will
never be suitable for a community tank. If they complain, just leave
it anyway - they'll figure out something to do with it. After all,
they gave you the bad advice in the first place.
Believe it or not, they had an offer the day I bought it. Buy 2 for £28!
Fortunately, I just bought the one.
Wow. I've never even seen L. variegatus for sale over here. I'll know
not to buy one! Maybe your LFS will take it back if it's rare in the UK.
Now, as for ruby shark and SAE, I've personally kept 3 SAE and one
flying fox (E. kalopterus) together and things were fine. The flying
fox chased the SAE around some, but always got distracted because
there were 3 of them. I think of Flying foxes and ruby sharks as
similarly aggressive with redtails as the psycho killer member of the
family.
My experience totally agrees.
So...What I would personally try is 3 or 4 SAE - the largest you can
buy - if you have the tank room. My best guess is that the ruby shark
will most likely chase the SAE around, but the aggression will be
spread amongst the SAE and they will be OK. But this is only a guess
based on my flying fox experience!
Hopefully someone else will post who has actually tried ruby sharks
and SAE together.
I definitely need some critter to clean the BBA from the leaves as most
leaves are affected, almost imperceptibly though. The PO4 is under
control. They say to prune all leaves that are infected at this stage.
If I did that, the only leaf in the tank left would be the Water Sprite.
Do you know the mechanism SAE use to prise away BBA? I still can't
believe that anything could have the equipment to get rid of this stuff!
Nikki
The fish seem to eat the soft, fuzzy strands. They don't actually
scrape the algae off of things so you'll still see some dark spotting.
I had to scrub my the remainder of the algae off of my heater and filter
intakes when I had an infested tank. However, new plant growth comes in
virtually algae free since they eat the tender new algae as soon as it
starts to get a foothold. Your plants will gradually shed the infested
leaves and start to look green again.
Oh - and if you try SAE, feed the tank as lightly as you can. SAE eat
all sorts of fish foods, and won't eat algae as diligently if they've
stuffed themselves on flakes.
--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__