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Danny Park, June 22, 2010
Since it's hard to express anything with emails without it sounding mean or rude (I'm not trying to be), but some people have a hard time identifying Siamese Algae Eaters, and on the fact sheet for them on your page, the first picture is actually of a Flying Fox, unless the camera is at some crazy angle where the yellow top turned black. If you want to add this, identifying Siamese Algae Eaters, look for clear fins, a black stripe that goes through to the tail, a zigzagish boundary to the black stripe, and a pointier nose. You'll have to ask the author for picture permissions, but this page gives a good idea http://www.fishlore.com/aquariummagazine/may08/siamese-algae-eater-id.htm A: Thanks, dude. I'll add your comments below my picture. They are hard to tell apart. I've had at least four different species come in as SAEs. One supplier even lists them under catfish. LA Colors.
Not your bright red livebearers.
Siamese algae-eating sharks earn their keep by eating algae, not by looking pretty.
When fed poorly, they look a washed out grey – very
non-commercial. In good
condition, their colors darken and look sharp. Water
Conditions.
As long as you keep them in clean water, your
Siamese algae-eating sharks will look good. If you keep
yours in dirty water, you’ll notice his sharp black stripe turning grey.
He needs a water change. Diet.
You feed it; your
Siamese algae-eating sharks will eat it.
They are not picky. They
do love brine shrimp and other treats and they respond very favorably to
color foods. Color foods bring
out a jet black color in their side stripe.
Vegetation and vegetable foods also help maintain their black
stripe.
Sexes.
Female
Siamese algae-eating sharks grow plumper than the males.
Sex makes little difference. You
won’t breed them unless you take them back to Size.
You see
Siamese algae-eating sharks in our sales tanks at a little under two inches –
cute and useful. We’ve never
seen their theoretical full six-inch size – not even close. We’ve
grown some five inchers in a 55 but that’s it. Temperament.
Always working at algae munching,
Siamese algae-eating sharks usually
leave their tank mates alone. However,
in large groups, they start pestering other fishes.
Our last pack of 200 we split among several tanks.
One group of four kept trying to climb up the butt of two very
large calico fantail goldfish. Strange
behavior. Anyway, they will
pester other fish if they want to -- but not as much as the very pesky
Chinese algae eaters (which do not seem to like algae once they get a
taste of fish food). Keep
Covered? Many
references say, “Keep
Siamese algae-eating sharks
covered.”
We’ve never seen one of them jump. However,
you should cover most fishes.
Groupies.
Siamese algae-eating sharks like to bunch up.
They’re schoolers. On
the other hand, they seem perfectly content as singles.
They’re
Specialists.
Now we’re down to the nitties and the gritties.
Siamese algae-eating
sharks eat types of algae that other algae eaters
won’t touch or are too destructive to use.
Example: When you drop
in a plecostomus to eat the algae on your
Amazon sword plant, he eats the top layer off
your sword plant leaves. Goodbye,
decorative plant. Goodbye, Mr.
Plecostomus.
Cut
Their Rations.
Theoretically,
Siamese algae-eating sharks like hair algae and tuft algae.
Still, they like fish food better.
If you issue them full MREs in flake foods, they’d just as soon
pass on your crummy tasting algae. Limit
their rations until they clean up your algae problem. Post Algae Problem. They ate all your algae, now what? Siamese algae-eating sharks will not starve. They start browsing on your plants unless they’re plastic plants. Move the little rascals to a tank with algae, or feed them more MREs. Oh, and they do pester their slower tank mates.
Last
Word.
Siamese algae-eating sharks do not constantly cruise like normal fish.
They don’t patrol your tank. They
usually rest or dart about when not munching algae. You often find
them resting or hovering in the plants in a peculiar arching attitude.
LA
Nicholas Tims, Mississippi, June 3, 2008
Hello. My name is Nick and I'm from Mississippi and I absolutely love your website. A lot of good information is located here. Anyways, I would just like to add a little bit to the temperament of the true SAE (Siamese algae eater). Mine is in a community tank, and he spends half of his time just sitting around or darting places, but the other half he actually spends "schooling" with my 6 zebra danios. It is odd, and at first I thought he was chasing them, but he just fits right in as one. It's rather interesting to watch him follow one or the whole school around. Other times he will swim side by side right at the glass of the tank with the pictus cat. It seems as though he doesn't know what he is, but he gets along great and eats his algae! PS He has tried many times and succeeded once in jumping out. He does love to jump. Thanks! A: Thanks. I'll add your report to my SAE page. LA © 2003, © 2004, © 2008 LA Productions
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