How do you know if you have enough algae?

[Caper]

You always see questions about unwanted or too much algae. How do you know you have enough for algae eating fish?

Caper

[Ianab]

Plecos and hillstream loaches will eat algae, but generally you cant grow enough in a tank to feed a large (or several) fish. So you need to supplement their diet with tablets, wafers or veges anyway.

So.. basically dont worry about it

Cheers

Ian

[jn]

Caper I've been wondering the same thing

I get that you have to supplement them.. but by how much eh?!

And if you supplement too much.. they stop eating the algae!

You have otocinclus right? Do they eat algae off your plant leaves?

I have some borneo suckers and don't seem to attempt any feeding from the plant leaves.

What's their behavious like? Do they swim around much? or do they mostly stay latched onto something?

[alanmin4304]

Most algae eaters don't confine themselves to eating algae and will also share in food given to other fish. I have siamese algae eaters with clown loaches and killies and they do well on live food and the algae in the tank. I also have a large pleco with turtles and fast swimming guppies that do well on turtle pellets and oxygen weed. They get pleco tabs about once a month. The guppies do better than ones in other tanks and are now on about the fourth generation. Pleco is the same age as the male turtle (9 years) and is over a foot long. I haven't heard complaints from any of them. If you want your algae and snails eaten you need to make them attractive tucker to the relevent fish.