Pleco making a mess in my Discus tank

[Sandy Clay]

I have my new 75 set up and noticed some algae growing on the leaves of my Anubis. I decided to move my little Pleco from my Angel tank to clean up this algae. The Pleco is probably a year old, but, is a small variety. Well.....I cannot believe the POOP!!! OMG I have never seen that much from ALL of my Discus!!! I have wood with the plants growing on it, do you think this is just wood he has been chewing on or actual poop? I will probably move him back once he cleans everything up. The rate he is going , it shouldn't take long! What do you all do for the algae? Or is there a variety of Pleco that does not produce so much mess?

[Jeff O]

Most people use dwarf bristle noses. Part of most plecos diet is wood, what hes doing is eating the wood and pooping it out, if you do daily water changes this really shouldnt matter because it will get sucked out everyday anyway.
-Jeff

[Sandy Clay]

Since I moved them into the 75 gallon, I have been doing water changes every 3 days. Seems to work out pretty good. I have had the bushy nose before, but, geez I don't remember them making the mess this little guy does.

[AngryBird]

Been there, done that. I threw a Pleco in my shrimp tank to do the clean up and it cleaned up so good, all the poop in the tank killed almost all the adult shrimps. But in a day there was nothing left for the pleco to chew because all the soft layer of driftwood were gone.

[Sandy Clay]

What does one do for the algae then?

[lipadj46]

I don't have any algae. If you have algae don't leave your lights on as long.

[Sandy Clay]

It is that brown Algae getting on the leaves of my Anubis. I only have the lights on in the evenings from around 4 to 10.

[lipadj46]

How new is the tank? Brown algae is usually in a new tank. I found after my plecos grow up they stop eating algae and scavenge off of wood and leftover fish food. My ancistrus are about 2 years old and don't eat anything but fish food and wood but do make a huge mess but that is taken care of during my daily maintenance. Otos are good for brown algae but not for a discus tank.

[Wahter]

If you have brown diatom algae, one thing (other than adding otos) that may clear it up is adding more lighting (sounds contradictory, but sometimes it does work and it won't necessarily cause other algae to grow out of control. Notice I said more (ie. intensity) NOT longer (duration) of lighting.

Here's a good website on algae:

http://www.guitarfish.org/algae

(yes, pl*cos DO make a lot of mess).


Walter

[barkmanusd]

SAE's work really well also!

[wavesurfer]

SAE's work really well also!
Yes but try not to let them get used to eating other food like pellets/worms. They usually have a tendency of becoming lazy eating algae after they have tasted better food.

[Sandy Clay]

Gosh I never thought about that lipadj46...this tank has only been running for about 6 weeks. I got it new for Christmas and set it up in January. I moved my existing filters to it, so, the cycling went pretty fast. Maybe that is the case then.

I cleaned up the mess and moved the Pleco back to the Angel tank. OMG I cannot believe the poop from 1 day in the tank!!!!!!!!!!!:confused:

[Sandy Clay]

Wahter thanks for the link, that was very informational.