Suitable catfish

[martinlw]

Hi,What species of catfish would be suitable to keep with my Discus,preferably one that can eat algae.

[fish_maniac]

Hi Martin,
Welcome to the forum. I have 3 to 4 albino gold bristlenose plecos in my discus tank. I have them over a year and I didn't have any problem. They don't get too big and they seems to do OK with the high temp and food that I used in teh discus tank. I usually keep my tank around 86F. They also do a great job with the algae.
I also added a 3 in golden nugget in the tank for a few weeks. They told me the golden nugget will do ok with the blood worm and food. My temp may be too high for them. I will have to take him out when he/she get bigger also.
I think overall the albino bristlenose plecos should be fine.

Hope this help.

Kam

[cobaltblue]

Bristlenose are good unless your tank is acrylic. Then they can scratch it up pretty badly. I am getting an albino bn pleco as well. I have a rubberlips pleco that i thought would help with algae, but he stays lodged in my driftwood ALL the time, and i never see him. BORING. I have a number of otocinclus which work really well on algae and dont bother the discus. I have clown loaches that also clean the bottom nicely of leftover food.
Welcome to simply and enjoy your fish.

[martinlw]

Hi,Thankyou for the info i will probably get a Bristlenose and six or seven otos.

[RyanH]

Corys do very well with Discus also.

[tpl*co]

For leftover clean up crew I have burmese border (angelis) loaches in my tank. For algae I have the albino bristlenoses. I hear clown loaches are good for clean-up too but they won't do a thing for your algae.

[Anonapersona]

Beware of otos, some are "attack otos" and latch onto discus, some are not. You won't know until you catch them at it.

[Cosmo]

IMO, there are no suitable catfish for a Discus tank.. even those that normally do not disturb the Discus will occassionally latch on for a nice slime coat snack

Jim

[AmazonRainbows]

I have 3 Corydoras Paleatus (pepered cory cat) and they do weel with my Discus in a 80Gal. Thank. I use them to cycle my thank before adding the Discus and at lower temp the lay eggs on the front glass. Since I raise the temp for the Discus they do not lay eggs any more but they seem to do very well. They are working at night and a little bit at day time to but they do not eat a lot of algae. Sometime they go around my Discus but this doesn't seem to bother my Discus. I keep them because they do a wonderfull job keeping my plant clean.

I also have 3 adult Corydoras Agassizi (Salt & Pepper). They are very nervous and unless food is serve they never come out on day time. They are also very excited in night time. My Discus don't seem to be disturb by them but I will get them out because I feel that they are too nervous and I don't whant that to be communicative...

If you need fish to eat algae you may use many kind of fish if you take the time to condition the fish. In my thank I use guppy. When they have fry the one that don't get eat by Tetra or Discus are left with very little food to eat so they start eating algae and never stop when growing older. SO I use guppy to eat algae on my thank... and they seem to love algae!

I read somewhere in a book that you can do the same with gouramis. You put the fish in a separate thank with only algae to eat. You feed nothing to the fish. After 2 weeks they get use to eat algae and they will also eat algae when you put them back in the community thank. Looks like my guppy thing...

My thank is 80Gal. Temp is 29.5-30.
7 Discus from 2" to 5"
1 Platty
5 Guppy Adult / 12 young (Eat algae)
6 Corrycats
4 Neon, 3 Pink neon
5 Rasboras Harlequin

Hope this will help you.

[JeffreyRichard]

IMO, there are no suitable catfish for a Discus tank.. even those that normally do not disturb the Discus will occassionally latch on for a nice slime coat snack

Jim

"catfish" include more than the plecostomous you are refering to ... Loricariidae include not only plecostomous (which may try to feed off the discus slime coat), but also zebra, gold nugget and other fancy cats which will not bother discus to my knowledge.

Also, Corydoras are a large family of cats which also will not bother discus.

Please visit Plant Catfish http://www.planetcatfish.com/ for more information

[JeffreyRichard]

Regarding Corys ... many are more sutible to cooler water than discus water. I've had much success with C. Sterbai which seem to tolerate higher tempertures better than most. Check with a resource regarding temperature requirements for cory species.

[korbi_doc]

When I was looking for cories, the C. Sterbai was my first choice, but then I also found C. Julii, & they have been fine in my tanks, temp does not bother them & they do not bother the discus..
I also like my dwarf bristlenoses, have 1 albino, rest dark, but looks like only 1 female, rest all have very long wiskers; they do not bother the discus at all either..... Dottie