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Re: worthless SAEs
In a message dated 5/16/00 3:52:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time, D. Chang writes:
<< don't know why SAE's and Amano shrimps EVER got so popular w/ us plant
people. SAEs are finniky algae eaters w/ low appetites. You have to watch
them for days to see them eat any algae! They have never served as
effective tools for algae control in my tanks (I have never had red hair
algae). >>
That last line is the important one. The SAEs are valuable because very
little else eats BBA. If you never had it, you wouldn't need them.
The effectiveness of these fish was recently demonstrated to me. To
fight a green water outbreak with daphnia, I suspended a breeders box wrapped
with a nylon stocking from the tank's center brace. This was the favorite
surface of my three young SAEs, they would constantly clean the outside
surface of it with their mouths. When the water was clear, about ten days
later, the outside of the nylon was clean while the inside had a uniform,
half-inch layer of black hair on it, thick enough to significantly restrict
current through the box. There was no other visible algae in the tank.
BTW, I had no trouble related to the use of nylon stocking in the
tank, but since another contributor had trouble with nylon poisoning, I would
make sure to use only stockings that had been washed several times in the
future.
For what it is worth, the daphnia were very effective, but the box looks
silly. Since it is a recurring problem, I use a flocculant and a diatom
filter. If I had a sump, I could probably make a permanent refugium in there
for the daphnia, as mentioned somewhere in the KRIB.
I was going to ask what FFF was- just realized it is Florida Flag Fish.
Pierre Gagne
Kensington, MD