What kind of algae eater is pretty, colorful, and docile???

Question

I have a 55 gl freshwater tank that I have the real life corals in and I want a pretty and colorful algae eater to go with the motify. Any suggestions would be great and please provide a site that I can see pictures.

They aren't real corals that are alive and grow. They are the soft plastic ones that are call real life corals.

PLEASE READ IT IS FRESHWATER WITH DECORATIONS IN IT CALLED "REAL LIFE CORALS"!!!!!

Answer 1

Plecostomus' are pretty and some grow pretty big. I love owning plecos. My favorites are the gold nugget pleco (it's black and has yellow polka dots with yellow seam fins), royal pleco (striped black and grey with a big head and pretty red eyes), and the scarlet pleco (black-greyish with red-orangish fins).
Heres some site with different kinds of plecos.

http://www.tropicalfish4u.co.uk/acatalog/Placos.html
http://www.riverwonders.com/index.php?cPath=23&osCsid=069ae3b24f96bcb8c2ae1471e01e2526

Answer 2

The problem you face with saltwater (I'm assuming you meant salt, since there are no freshwater corals), is that the algae eaters are more specific to certain types of algae, so there's no "one organism that will eat all". What you need to do is to identify what types of algae are causing problems, and find something that will eat that type. What you can get also depends a lot on the tank size, and what else you have already (for instance, it's wouldn't be a good idea to mix small snails or shrimp with fish that would eat them). You can use this link to identify the types of algae you have, then use the number next to the name to find which fish and inverts will eat that type at the bottom of the page: http://saltcorner.com/sections/guest/algaepage/algaepage.htm If what you have is cyanobacteria (red slime algae), nothing really eats that. For places where you can find photos of these organisms, plus ideas of what they will cost, see thse links:
http://www.marinedepotlive.com/
http://www.tropicalfishoutlet.com/
http://www.liveaquaria.com/
http://www.saltwaterfish.com/

You can do a lot yourself to identify what's the cause of the algae problem and correct this. All algeas need to have light and nutrients to grow, so you can control your algae by controlling one or both of these. You don't want to have your lights on more than 10 hrs per day, and if you don't have corals, anemones, or other photosynthetic organisms, you can turn them off completely for a few days. If the algae doesn't have light, it can't make food for itself.

As far as nutrients, make sure you aren't overfeeding your fish - only give what they can eat in 2-3 minutes twice a day. Any excess feeds tha algae as it decomposes and makes more cleaning work for you. You should be doing partial water changes of about 25% each week, or how much you can get out without exposing any live rock (if you use this in the tank) to air. You want to keep the nitrate level below 20 ppm. If you're using tapwater to mix the saltwater, that can be part of the problem - in some areas, tapwater can contain nitrate and phosphate, both of which are plant (and algae) fertilizers, so even doing water changes adds more "food" for algae growth. You might want to have your local pet store test a sample of your tank water for these if you aren't able to do this yourself. Or, you can request a water analysis from your water provider (they have to test their supply anyway). At best, if you have either of these, you may want to add a phosphate or nitrate absorbing medium to your filter, or switch to reverse osmosis water (available at SuperWalMarts [as Culligan water at a self-serve dispenser] for around $0.33 per gallon, once you buy their refillable container). This already has the phosphate and nitrate removed by the purification process.

For more on algae and cyanobacteria control, see these links:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/algaeconMar.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/bluegralgae.htm
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=16&cat=1789&articleid=1642

Answer 3

Otocinclus Catfish are the smallest (and terrific) algae eater accessible on the industry. regrettably, the final public in shops are wild caught so as that they have got an extremely LOW survival fee. in case you purchase some make effective the save has a guarantee era because of the fact they maximum probable won't proceed to exist. in the event that they do proceed to exist 2 weeks without finding ill/sickly then you somewhat ought to be 'residing house unfastened' so which you ought to talk. There are additionally some small Plecostomus yet no rely what, Plecos are no longer sturdy algae eaters. while they are small they are (form of) yet as they get bigger and older they get very belligerent and lazy and do extra injury than sturdy on your tank. So flow with Otto's. in spite of the incontrovertible fact that, in case you have Mollies on your 10 gallon tank then you somewhat somewhat ought to think of roughly restocking. Mollies are Brackish water fish (a mix of clean and salt water) and should no longer be saved in freshwater no rely what. shops that have them in freshwater are incorrect. in addition they choose a tank of a minimum of 30 gallons. Mollies even have very short existence spans because of the incontrovertible fact that folk have DESTROYED the linage with the aid of conserving them in freshwater while they choose brackish water. Sorry, yet once you opt to function to any extent further fish on your tank i could propose re-homing ANY Mollies and Platies (in case you have any).

Answer 4

freshwater corals? thats a new one. some more interesting things that will eat algae are flagfish and amano shrimp. i don't think they are that pretty just different.