Million Dollar Pet Pix

Yes! There Are Fish That Clean Your Aquarium For You...

Maintaining an aquarium can be an ongoing task but you can lighten the load a little bit by buying fish and other creatures that do part of the work for you.  These fish are scavengers that feed on the food on the bottom of the crater rim as well as the algae.  When buying these kinds of fish you need to be careful of the kind that you buy as some can exist peacefully with your other fish while others will attack them.

One of the toughest problems in maintaining a tank is keeping the algae growth down.  Luckily there are fish that actually eat the algae keeping the tank clean for you!

The Chinese algae eater can eat a normal salon of algae and attach themselves to the flat surfaces of your tank and decorations scraping algae off.  The Chinese algae eater can become aggressive when he becomes an adult and may even attack larger fish so they are great having in a tank when they are young, but not so good when they're adults.

The flying fox or trunk barb each LG and also will eat the leftover food at the bottom of the tank.  They shouldn't be put in with a similar species though as they can become territorial.

If you want a shy and peaceful fish that is a good community member and also eats algea then you could try getting a catfish for your aquarium.

Snails are another fish tank creature that eats algae but they'll go for the plants first so if you have live plants in your tank you might not want to add snails.  Apple snails might be a good idea because they prefer the LG over the plants however you may find them feeding on sleeping fish!  Another thing to keep in mind is that snails reproduce pretty quickly so if you don't want a tank full of snails by only one.

Sometimes live plants have snail eggs already on them.  I once put a plant in my tank and lo and behold all of a sudden I had tons of teeny tiny snails - and I mean tons!  If this happens to you and you want to get rid of them think about buying a loach.  Loaches eat snails and they also eat algae so you can kill two birds with one stone.  Sucker loaches, however, may  bite  the fish when they grow to be adults.

Cleaner shrimp can help with tank maintenance.  Bumblebee shrimp will eat leftover food to help keep down algae growth in the tank but you have to be careful to provide them with other food as well.  These shrimp are only about an inch long and relatively harmless to your other fish.  Ghost charm will eat both algae and the food at the bottom of the tank too but they also might eat small fresh and may get to the fish food before your fish can even eat it as collection point!

If you have any saltwater aquarium, then getting a couple of crabs might be a great way to cut down on algae.  Hermit crabs who eat algae as well as the food that settles on the bottom of the aquarium.  Keep in mind, however, that you must buy crabs that don't grow larger than an inch as big crabs might kill your fish.  Emerald green crabs and  Mithrax  crabs might be good for saltwater tanks. Sally Lightfoot crabs eat hair algae and bubble algae and are also very peaceful creatures.

So there you have it, some creatures to add interest to your tank as well as help you clean it!

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Lee Dobbins writes for http://www.fish-tank-guide.com where you can learn more about fish tanks and tropical fish. 

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