How do catfish clean tanks?

[rsmall]

Hello...I'm a fifth grader at Kensington Elementary School in Kensington New Hampshire. I'm doing a feature article project and I need to ask an expert a question. This is my question:

How do catfish clean tanks?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Silurus]

They don't actually clean tanks. Unless you are referring to getting rid of algae (which some catfishes do by eating it).

[characinkid]

Hi

I am a member of the New Hampshire Aquarium soc. and you could try someone from the list at http://www.nhaquariumsociety.com/ or contact me.

Catfish can eat uneaten food that falls to the bottom, and some of them can eat the algae on the sides of a fish tank, but they should be fed there own food as there are lots of different kinds all with different food requirements.

[rsmall]

Thanks for the info about the algae eating catfish and how they keep a tank cleen. Could you also give me an idea of how many species of algae eating catfish there are or where I could look for answers to these kind of info questions.javascript:emoticon(':?:')

Thanks'
Kevin

Hi

I am a member of the New Hampshire Aquarium soc. and you could try someone from the list at http://www.nhaquariumsociety.com/ or contact me.

Catfish can eat uneaten food that falls to the bottom, and some of them can eat the algae on the sides of a fish tank, but they should be fed there own food as there are lots of different kinds all with different food requirements.

[MatsP]

Thanks for the info about the algae eating catfish and how they keep a tank cleen. Could you also give me an idea of how many species of algae eating catfish there are or where I could look for answers to these kind of info questions.javascript:emoticon(':?:')

Thanks'
Kevin

Kevin,

There are a great number of (more or less) algae eating catfish. The most popular one is probably the Hypostomus Plecostomus and Pterygoplichthys gibbiceps (the larger ones, it can grow to about 18 inches or more), whilst smaller species such as the Otocinclus and Ancistrus are also very good at eating algae, and more suitable for average sized aquariums.

Lots of other catfish are good at "clearing up leftovers", i.e. they eat the food that falls to the bottom of the tank. Corydoras are one of these fish that eat leftovers, but there are many others.

Then there are many catfish that will not be of this sort of "usefulness" in an aquarium, but are pretty to look at (or ugly, depending very much on your personal preference).

As Silurus pointed out, this is only cleaning in a "mechanical" perspective, saving the aquarium owner from scrubbing the sides of the tank. They do not "clean" the water of the tank, in fact they are pretty good at producing "fecal matter" (poo, sh*t, or what you want to call it), so if anything, the aquarium water will be slightly dirtier when adding these type of fish, compared to without them.

You can find more information about the species that I've mentioned (and many others) in the Cat-eLog on this site. If you select the "By scientific name" in the Cat-eLog menu, you should be able to find them sorted in a way that makes it easy to find all species of a particular group.

If you look at the "info" for each fish, you should be able to see what they eat in the "feeding section".

--
Mats