need to add an algae eater

[cichlidDood]

Hi,
my algae eater recently died and i now my tank is getting a bit dirty looking from algae overgrowth. i bought one of those magnetic scrapers for the front, but it just leaves a lot of scraped and clumped algae rolls all over the place.

so i decided to just go ahead and buy a couple new chinese algae eaters since they do such a fantastic job at tank cleanup. so i put them in and just as you can imagine, they disappeared overnight.

what would be the best way to add these guys in without the other cichlids eating em? i have 3 red jewels, 2 yellow labs, and 4 blue johanni. oh, and a texas cichlid. i think the last one is the one who's eating em, but i can't be for sure since i have not yet caught them in the act.

help! :nervous: :( :confused:

[SGypsyMermaid]

i'm surprised that your labs and johanni don't eat them. i have an o.b. peacock that paces me when i'm scraping algae...i have to be careful not to hit her. quite a few of the others, also try to get the algae as fast as i scrape it, but she is the boldest.

[SGypsyMermaid]

are you sure that that alge-eater was a chinese algae-eater and not a siamese algae-eater? the chinese variety usually only eats algae as a juvenile.

[cichlidDood]

no, they are (were) chinese algae eaters. those guys can clean a tank way better than any pleco i've ever seen. i do have a pleco in the tank that i was able to sneak in during a water change. he doesn't do his job though, so i want to sneak in a chinese algae eater.

would i need to do a water change and move some rocks and sand around in the tank to keep the cichlids focused on establishing territory, then drop in the chinese algae eater? if i just put it in after acclimating him to the water temp of the tank, the other fish assume he/she is dinner.....

[demonblade442]

maybe if you swish around you gravel then slip in the algae eater you may have a better chance.. also look around for larger ones. While I worked at the LFS we got two in at about 5-6" and they still ate algae like the little ones.

[cichlidDood]

cool, i'll try that. thanks much