Fish to eat dead plants? and! Why won't they grow?

[Mark Wolek <mwolek at omiintl_com>]

I am looking for some fish to add to my tank to eat dead plant material,
without bothering the live plants.  Other then the obvious algae eaters (do
they eat dead plants?) and catfish, are there any other suggestions people
on the list might have to help keep my tank cleaner?   I currently have 7
cory cats, 5 ottos, and a guppy (guppy is FAT and always picking off the
bottom).  Everything else is a tetra.   Suggestions on fish to add?  I do
want to add about 5-7 ore corys, and about 10 more ottos, as well as a SAE
or 2 when I find one.  But is there better??    Has anyone experienced any
fish that really do a good job at this over others?  I was contemplating a
small school of cherry barbs, but an uncomfortable adding barbs to a tetra
tank.
 
Also, my crypts and hygro will not grow.  They are slowly (very slowly)
losing leaves that turn yellow and deteriorate.  I'm not sure on the
specific type of plant off hand.   Also my dwarf sword plants (I think, the
stems are tubular as I found when 'cutting the grass' in one spot, but at
the top the leaves flattened out into a leaf look rather then a tube, big
ones were about 5" tall, plant seems to propogate via runners, the roots
look like the plant as near as I can tell, any help ID'g it?) are growing
very very slowly if at all, to the point they get algae on them faster then
they will grow.   Meanwhile, my Ludwegia and Caraba (sp) are thriving to the
point I have taken clippings already!   The only difference I can see is the
side with the thriving plants is a much deeper gravel bed.   The tank used
to have 2, 300GPH power heads running a UGF, I replaced that the other day
with 2, Hagen 402's running reverse flow, and turned on my magnum 350 with
micron filter, I think this will be a lot easier on the plant roots.  I plan
to plumb in a wetdry with overflow (surface scum) and jet the return with a
RIO 2500, that will acually split into 4 returns to reduce water pressure
and flow of the pump.  Might even add 2 returns to run the RUGF and replace
the powerheads.
 
The tank is a 75 gallon oceanic.  Ammonia is 0, nitrite is 0, pH is 7.0,
Nitrate is somewhere between 1-10 ppm (the test kits low end is 10ppm, and
it closley matches that color but not quite).  Iron is about .15 chelated
Unsure on Phosphates or other chemicals.   I dose weekly with 2 Kent
products (unsure name off hand) and 1ml of seachem iron a day.   Lighting is
4, 65watt power compacts (2 on each side of the tank) for a total of 260
watts, run about 11 hours a day.   Algae growth is minimal for the most
part, very little hair algae on the gravel here and there, most of it is on
my dwarf swords (if thats what they are).  Any plant leaves in the tank that
are broad, and old have green spot algae, and green spot algae is what grows
on the glass, which needs to be cleaned off about weekly.
 
 
Thanks in advance!
Mark


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