midnightwolf

are there any pond fish that will eat algae and dont need to be brought indoors in the winter. if not i might beable to get a 10g for in the winter.

any ideas?

gremlin

goldfish will eat a certain amount of the moss. For my pond, I have sailfin plecos and chinese algae eaters, but they need to be brought in when the water temp drops to 70 degrees farenheit and lower. There is supposed to be one called a gara pingi pingi that can handle the cooler temps, but from what I've read, it needs super clean water and that is hard to maintain in an outdoor pond. My cleaning crew kept my pond so free of algae last summer that you couldn't see a speck of algae anywhere in the pond. I figure it is worth the hassle of an indoor tank for the winter to have the pond so nice and algae free all summer.

midnightwolf

arent chineese algae eaters aggressive? and would 10g be enough for a pleco in the winter?

Beeker

As CAEs get older, they do become more aggressive and carnivorous.
Depending on what kind of Pleco you get, you would need at least a 20 gallon tank to start. That is for the small Plecos. The common ones would need at least 50 gallons.

gremlin

My cleaning crew (2 sailfin plecos and 3 CAE's) are in a 40 gallon breeder tank that has double filters and daily water changes for the winter. As soon as possible, they are going back out into the pond. The cae's can be aggressive but this is usually a sign of not enough food, room, or hiding places. I have found that as long as you provide them with what they need, then the cae's can be good little fish. As they age, the cae's diet is only partly algae. They like a meatier diet. They also need a lot of swimming room and at least two (and most prefer three) hiding places each. They are very active swimmers for their size and have the appetite of a much larger fish (like a shark). I would say a 10 gallon would not be able to handle the waste of any of them for the winter. I'm having to do daily water changes to keep up with the waste in a 40 gallon...

catfishlover123

Plecos cannot survive the winter so you need to bring them in for the winter.

gremlin

I know - that's why my two plecos and my 3 chinese algae eaters are inside in a heated tank right now. They won't go back in the pond until the water temp in the pond stays above 70 degrees farenheit for at least 3 nights in a row. The last two winters I only had one of each to house and I have a couple of friends who have large tanks for classrooms. They were more than happy to take large algae eaters/plecos for their tanks. Something large enough that the kids could see them. I decided I wanted to keep this years (and my friends were running out of tanks that needed algae eaters), so I set up an inside tank for them this winter.

Fish Addict

aren't garra pingi those doctor fish??

Also, I thought there was a mosquito fish or something that ate algae.. I think I may have seen it in the ID section...

gremlin

Gara Pingi Pingi - here is a web site that has a species profile http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/fish/pingilogsucker.php
My sister bought two for my pond and they disappeared.

Mosquito fish are meat eaters, not algae eaters. They like to sit in the algae and sun themselves, but they don't eat the algae. Here is a link on the mosquito fish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquitofish