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shark Vs chinese (gold) algae eater?


Carlos & Siran

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Hola, the missus bought a gold algae eater to help our leopard sailfin pleco in our new tank, but the resident redtail black is just not giving him a break, nipping his tail and chasing him relentlessly. The girl at lps said it would be fine. Will the AE sort him out do you think? or have we made a booboo?. Was thinking of having a move around in there as the redtail black has had the tank pretty much to himself for the last 5 weeks and sees the tank as his I guess.

Waddaya reckon?

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I would say a boo-boo..... I am currently rehoming my shark as I have the opposite problem. Both species are just too territorial & don't seem to mix. You could *try* making sure there are plenty of hiding places for all of them, it may alleviate the problem if everyone has their own personal cave to claim.

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most LFS will (or should) tell you that you can't keep 2 rainbow or red tailed sharks together as they are aggressively territorial. What many don't or can't tell you (because too many just don't know) is that algae eaters are a similar species and equally aggressive to each other.

I was fortunate enough to have a rainbow shark and an algae eater who were reasonably compatible (or at least not aggressive), maybe because they were both young and introduced to the tank simultaneously. Usually though, putting the two together is a boo boo, and if they do have issues you may need to look at re-housing one or the other.

Do try moving things around in the tank though, it can be very effective in breaking the territorial dominance.

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thanx for the info, amazingly enough the shark seems the have settled down, he usually camps out on the right hand side of the tank where he has a wee cave all to himself, the GAE has stayed on the left and is being left alone, though we're still going to have a move around and make sure there's lots of caves for everyone

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