Obv these are ok with cichlids from what I have read...is it worth getting one, and would it be a good idea to wait until the tank fully cycles before getting one, would it put much strain on the bio filter while its doing its thing?

yeah they are fine with cichlids.... but they are quite lazy... bristlenoses do a much better job and apparently chinese algae eaters do to

cool will have to hunt around, alot of them are ugly mofo's but ill steer clear of plecos if they are lazy.

Chinese algae eaters eat holes in fish. Plecos eat less algae as they get older but they're in no way lazy...

Lol ours are lazy... one never comes out from under a rock and the other never comes out of its terricota boot

Oh well mine's usually quite personable, cruising around the tank sucking anything any everything.

Lol we just use ours to clean up unwanted spawnings of fish when we've run out of tank space..... lately he's had salvini eggs, geo eggs, jack dempsy eggs... and soon maybe redheaded cichlid eggs

im surprised the cichlids dont have a go at him and defend the eggs

Lol they do but plecos have really hard scales and are quite spikey in some places... gets the odd damaged fin but recovers before the next time he feels hungry for some eggs

i have had no probs with cae's i have 2 in one tank and 1 in another tank with no problems no unexplained deaths, no deaths full stop actually, plecos and bn's and ever type of sucker fish can and will latch on to a wounded fish and just keep sucking until the fish dies, natural instinct??? well i have only heard of cae's, plecs and bns doing it so i though maybe others do as well. hmm, polgara you could sell cichlids eggs on trademe as good protein food

The only thing I've seen a CAE seriously attack was another CAE.

I kept one with medium cichlids for 6-8 months, and they got on fine.

I've had one kill another CAE too and it seriously injured some corydoras as well, although they didn't die they had big wounds that took them a while to heal.

Thread Moved To Catfish Section

Bill.

plecos are very cool. ours isnt too lazy, i hear they are nocturnal??

they are also very placid, you can pick them up and move them around and all sorts, very cool fish!