what fish is the best for cleaning up my tank after my oscars have fed?
I have a common pleco he does'nt seem to eat the bits of pellets and meat that the oscars have droped.
They end up floating around mouldy.

thinking of and omnivorous catfish

buy a better filter, more fish will only make your water worse

try a prochalodis theyre omnivoruse and amazing fish although they can easily reach 15 inches in a few years

It is a mistake to think that adding fish that may eat algae to your tank means that it will save you time cleaning, it will not, in fact it will probably give you more work to do in the long run. If you want to avoid algae then there are some very basic steps to follow. Don't leave your lights on too long, don't put the tank near a bright window and don't overfeed or overstock.

Fish that consume other fishes faeces have to crap themselves so at the end of the day you are defeating the object. These plecs produce loads of waste very quickly, that is one reason I do not have them in my aquarium.

I was thinking of removing my red tail cat and replacing it with a the smallest cat i could put in my tank, with out it being eaten. Thinking of some thing about 5- 12 inch fully grown. even a bottom feeding fish. to clean up the food i miss.

I dont like it when i spook one of the fish and all the rubbish gets kicked up.
How often should i clean my gravel? currently cleaning it every 2 weeks and 25% water every week.

I dont want it to remove algae my common pleco does a fine job.

crowy83 wrote:


RTC in the tank? Now i gotto see some pics...my favorite fish.
You must have quite a tank.
Some synodontis species fall into the size catagory you mentioned and do some cleaning up.
But gravelcleaning is a better option.
I clean 3/4 of my gravel every week, during a 50% waterchange.
That's how i keep my tank clean.
My silver dollars will help with cleaning a lot.
They eat any leftovers and oscar poo.

Noddy wrote:
[quote]crowy83 wrote:


Do you use a gravel cleaner or do you remove it and clean it that way.

crowy83 wrote:
[quote]Noddy wrote:


Most people use a gravel cleaner

RTC get massive, so you either have a monster tank (lucky you and pics please) or you are going to have to rehome the RTC at some point. RTC's grow fast!!!

delboybully wrote:

RTC get massive, so you either have a monster tank (lucky you and pics please) or you are going to have to rehome the RTC at some point. RTC's grow fast!!![/quote]

I know ive just bought the tank with him in it. i need to rehome it they are nice fish though.

The get to about 3 feet in length. If you are in England go to the london aquarium, they have a tank full of them and they are all rescues where people couldnt keep them cause they got too big

Noddy wrote:


RTC in the tank? Now i gotto see some pics...my favorite fish.



hes a eating machine he will eat anything and he doesnt stop i have to feed o's first then him.

Not to large at the moment but it will grow very big as said already, what size tank do you have it in? can you cope with its size?