freshwater?

[MiamiAG]

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[Crabs+Shrimps-69]

Possibly harder. I had an sps reef years ago it wasn't that much more work than the lps reef I had. Corals grew and looked good. My high tech 125g build was a nightmare of constantly fidgeting with co2 and nutrients. Algae would pop up and there was really not much that would eat it. I had a hefty assortment of snails and shrimp. A lot of the fish that would possibly eat algae would also eat some of the plants. Sps reef had a purple tang, a mimic tang, and a foxface, and a decent cuc with an urchin, no algae would encroach and none of them ate my corals broke a few sure but thats just more frags.

IMO algae in saltwater is much harder to manage than in a freshwater tank.
Maybe it's because my saltwater tank is only 21 gallons and I have no room to keep a tang long term, but you not only have to worry about nutrients getting to high, but also too low in saltwater when it comes to getting algae issues.

The only algae problems I get in my freshwater tank is on the glass, on the gravel, and a small amount of algae that kinda looks like moss grows on my java moss, but none on my rocks and driftwood (although possible your added CO2 and higher nutrients played a role in that). My only CUC are those snails which hitchhike on live plants.

However, everyone I recognise how everyone has different experiences and I've never attempted to set up a high tech planted tank and never tried to set up an SPS reef, I just know the many challenges of setting up what would be considered a "simple" reef tank (soft corals only), plus there's a lot more to learn when first starting out for reef tanks.

Also for freshwater clean up crew, have you considered bristlenose catfish or plecos?
It's been a while since I've done any research on freshwater fish, but I don't remember hearing anything about those fish having a risk of eating plants.

 

[Fish Fan]

Otocinclus catfish eat a lot of algae, but don't harm plants or anything else really.

 

[zbrusko]

I’ve recently discovered Florida flag fish as excellent freshwater hair algae eaters.

 

[twentyleagues]

Florida flag fish are great at eating all kinds of algae and so are otos. Depends on the pleco whether it will or wont eat the algae or your plants the bristle nose I kept were so so left most algae alone ate some plants seem to like sword plants the most..... I dont like the look of flag fish. Otos can be "delicate". Amano shrimp and rams horn snails were the best but in large algae blooms could not keep up. Same issues with nutrients in high tech vs reefs to low and you get blooms of cyano or too high you get hair algae or worse yet black beard algae. All thing considered I kept my sps with much higher than most do for "nutrients" no issues the cuc and fish wouldnt let algae become an issue. I dont know if it even would have tbh. In a smaller set up without the room for those critters I can see it being an issue. So yes smaller would mean more work and thought going in to it.

 

[Fish Fan]

Florida flag fish are great at eating all kinds of algae and so are otos. Depends on the pleco whether it will or wont eat the algae or your plants the bristle nose I kept were so so left most algae alone ate some plants seem to like sword plants the most..... I dont like the look of flag fish. Otos can be "delicate". Amano shrimp and rams horn snails were the best but in large algae blooms could not keep up. Same issues with nutrients in high tech vs reefs to low and you get blooms of cyano or too high you get hair algae or worse yet black beard algae. All thing considered I kept my sps with much higher than most do for "nutrients" no issues the cuc and fish wouldnt let algae become an issue. I dont know if it even would have tbh. In a smaller set up without the room for those critters I can see it being an issue. So yes smaller would mean more work and thought going in to it.

Bristle nose placos rock! One of, if not the, most diminutive pleco (5"-6" max), and very, very peaceful. They will eat fish eggs if they can get to them but they don't bother small fry or much else, and they chomp a lot of algae. They are easy to sex and breed as well, the males are the ones that get the "bristles" on their nose.

Thanks for joining this discussion!

 

[UncommonSense]

Bristle nose placos rock! One of, if not the, most diminutive pleco (5"-6" max), and very, very peaceful. They will eat fish eggs if they can get to them but they don't bother small fry or much else, and they chop a lot of algae. They are easy to sex and breed as well.

Thanks for joining this discussion!

I also quite like “whip” plecos… They don’t get much longer than 7”, and are so thin that they tend to stray away from fights, unlike the bulkier plecos!

Does anyone else have much experience with the gymnotiformes?

I had a black ghost knifefish for nearly a decade, and am going to be ordering a school (8-10) of glass knifefish (gregarious) at the end of the month, now that my ghost is gone and the system has been remodeled (~205g actual water volume)!

— I’m struggling to find info on quarantine procedures for groups of this specific species aside from arguments about what size the QT tank needs to be…

 

[Fish Fan]

I also quite like “whip” plecos… They don’t get much longer than 7”, and are so thin that they tend to stray away from fights, unlike the bulkier plecos!

Does anyone else have much experience with the gymnotiformes?

I had a black ghost knifefish for nearly a decade, and am going to be ordering a school (8-10) of glass knifefish (gregarious) at the end of the month, now that my ghost is gone and the system has been remodeled (~205g actual water volume)!

— I’m struggling to find info on quarantine procedures for groups of this specific species aside from arguments about what size the QT tank needs to be…

I had a knife fish years ago, very cool fish for sure.

I know that @vetteguy53081 is knowledgable with fish QT, including I believe freshwater. Maybe he can help you here.

 

[vetteguy53081]

IMO algae in saltwater is much harder to manage than in a freshwater tank.
Maybe it's because my saltwater tank is only 21 gallons and I have no room to keep a tang long term, but you not only have to worry about nutrients getting to high, but also too low in saltwater when it comes to getting algae issues.

The only algae problems I get in my freshwater tank is on the glass, on the gravel, and a small amount of algae that kinda looks like moss grows on my java moss, but none on my rocks and driftwood (although possible your added CO2 and higher nutrients played a role in that). My only CUC are those snails which hitchhike on live plants.

However, everyone I recognise how everyone has different experiences and I've never attempted to set up a high tech planted tank and never tried to set up an SPS reef, I just know the many challenges of setting up what would be considered a "simple" reef tank (soft corals only), plus there's a lot more to learn when first starting out for reef tanks.

Also for freshwater clean up crew, have you considered bristlenose catfish or plecos?
It's been a while since I've done any research on freshwater fish, but I don't remember hearing anything about those fish having a risk of eating plants.

Otocinclus are good and safe algae eaters. Bristle also good and dont get gigantic like plecos

 

[vetteguy53081]

I also quite like “whip” plecos… They don’t get much longer than 7”, and are so thin that they tend to stray away from fights, unlike the bulkier plecos!

Does anyone else have much experience with the gymnotiformes?

I had a black ghost knifefish for nearly a decade, and am going to be ordering a school (8-10) of glass knifefish (gregarious) at the end of the month, now that my ghost is gone and the system has been remodeled (~205g actual water volume)!

— I’m struggling to find info on quarantine procedures for groups of this specific species aside from arguments about what size the QT tank needs to be…

These fish are scaleless and many meds to use but assure they say SAFE for scaleless fish. Methelyne blue is an example

 

[UncommonSense]

These fish are scaleless and many meds to use but assure they say SAFE for scaleless fish. Methelyne blue is an example

Thank you for the reply!

Absolutely! — it’s nice to see the meds are actually labeled as such these days! I spent countless hours searching the bowels of the internet for information years ago…

I know this is a ridiculously species specific question… but, have you ever heard of any gregarious gymnotiforms requiring a significantly larger quarantine tank than is commonly used? — there seems to be some debate over how much space they need in groups, even at 1-2” long!

(I have a 40g on hand, but am doing all the digging I can to see if I should get a 90+g QT tank up and running before I order…)

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thank you for the reply!

Absolutely! — it’s nice to see the meds are actually labeled as such these days! I spent countless hours searching the bowels of the internet for information years ago…

I know this is a ridiculously species specific question… but, have you ever heard of any gregarious gymnotiforms requiring a significantly larger quarantine tank than is commonly used? — there seems to be some debate over how much space they need in groups, even at 1-2” long!

(I have a 40g on hand, but am doing all the digging I can to see if I should get a 90+g QT tank up and running before I order…)

This type of bony knife fish is recommended to have a 75-90 which is similar footprint for a tank based on potential growth with hiding spots. I recommend driftwood over rock based on their smooth bodies but pay attention to PH which driftwood may alter