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Hello everyone.

I am probably getting a heavily planted 20 gal. tank with about 10 neon tetras and 5 ghost shrimp.

I was jsut wondering which kind of bottom feeder I should go for???

I am seriously thinking about Ottos because they are good with plants and are not aggresive at all...

I had a pleco once but they always over grow the tank, and I had about 5 albino cories, but those are in ym 33 gal now.

So could someone please let me know what is the best bet and how many I should get.

Thank You.

Cheers,

~Zix Stix~

hey zix.
well more corys are always an option!
from what i know of ottos those should be fine to
maybe a smaller loach? like some kuhlis? although I dont know if kuhlis and ghost shrimp would go together...
ive heard loachs can be aggressive towards invert's... oh well maybe someone else could give you a more def. answer!
best of luck!

The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we dont know what to do.

i personally like SAES but they will be alittle large for a 20g.

your on the right track with the dwarf ottos, but make sure your tank is well established before getting them, you;ll be fine until then.

I fully agree Ottos will do a good job at cleaning BUT the tank should be well established before you get any at all.
In my Betta tank I have a small SAE and when he gets bigger he goes into the 5ft tank. Khuli loaches are a must in a small suitable tank as they get into all the small places other fish cannot get to. As never seeing them mine are always visable especially at the front of the tank.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
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The ghost shrimp should do a pretty good job of scavenging the bottom for food. If you want something that will eat algae, go with some ottos but personally I wouldn't bother with something like that in a 20 unless you start to get a bunch of it on the live plants. Have you thought about getting 1 or 2 bigger fish instead?

I would say to add some more shrimp, like Amano shrimp or species of caridina/ neocaridina ( red cherry for example). You can mix Amano shrimp with caridinas and ghosts with no problem, just don't put 2 sorts of caridina together because they might interbreed. To me, the shrimps seem the best option. Amano shrimps seem quite greedy to me, mine eat a lot more than my cherrys, CRS and white pearls so they do a great job against algae, but dwarf shrimps are of course more cute.
Another option would be corydoras. Personally I like the combination cory + oto but your fishtank is not big enough for it.
I also think that the ones that said not to put otos or kuhlis now are right, you must wait a couple of month if you want this fish.
By any mean, do not buy ancistrus unless you like them very much, they make a mess in one of my fishtanks (but I still love them)

ok.

Thanks guys and girls.

I will prolly go with with some dif kind of shrimp or just take all the shrimp out and put a few ottos in.

Thank you very much.

Cheers,

~Zix Stix~

Zix Stix,

I vote for a rubbberlip pleco, my tank is spotless thanks to him and he will only get about 4 to 5 inches long, he/she is just a classy fish. As long as they have somewhere to hide they are pretty happy!

Justin

Colts Fan For Life
30g platy tank: 2 sunburst wag platys, 2 redtailed white calico platys, 2 red wag platys, 1 fry(not sure who it belongs to), 1 Golden CAE.
Bettas:1 VT male

Thanks Justin.

unfortunately my LFS doesn't sell Rubberlip plecos

I think i am going to go with ottos.

Cheers,

~Zix Stix~

You can mix Amano shrimp with caridinas and ghosts with no problem

I'd really disagree here. Amanos have been known to be rather violent toward other shrimp and it's not uncommon for them to kill off smaller shrimp like cherries or rainbows. The ghost shrimp mix pretty well being of similar size and different diet but I'd be wary mixing them in with lots of smaller algae eating shrimp. At the least they shove all the other shrimp away from the food and take it for themselves so the others starve.

Well, I mixed some different kinds of shrimp in a 53 UK gallon tank. The size of the tank is not important since all the srimps spend most of their time in a rather small area on an around 2 mopani woods covered with moss. Ocasionally they go on plants searching for algae, especially the Amanos. It is true that the Amano steals food from the dwarf shrimps, but actually I noticed that fish does it more often, even shy fish. I have there rummy nose tetras, emperor tetras and juvenile glass catfish. Even the very shy glass fish steals food while the shrimps are eating it, so I just feed a decent amount of pellets and other foods so they won't starve. Still, I am sure I don't overfeed, because the nitrit level in that tank seems to stay on 0 even if I skip a waterghange and the nitrate is low. I dont't think that Amanos can KILL adult sized dwarfs, I can't say anything about the baby shrimps but I don't want to breed any shrimp in that tank, I have special small species tanks for this. Anyway in the comunity tank the fish will eat the baby shrimps, but any fish large enough to eat brineshrimp would do it. So no comunity tank is safe for very small , 'just born' shrimp.
In conclusion, I can't deny that Amanos can be so violent, but I never saw this extreme behaviour in mine. Maybe it depends on different factors.


Later edit: Just now I realised in that fishtank is going to be a betta too, he might harm the small shrimp, I don't have betta splendens but my betta coccina would kill shrimp. I put them once in a pearl shrimp tank (only with adult shrimps) becase it was an emergency, I didn't have where to house them somewhere else for that moment and I thought they were small enough not to kill shrimp for a couple of days (they were about 3 cm and very thin). First day nothing happened , next day in the morning they started to steal the food from the shrimp in a very aggresive way, in the afternoon they were hunting down the shrimp trying to kill them, especially they were hunting together the females with eggs. So they had to move . So, watch your betta if you have shrimp, even if he is peaceful now in the future he might discover that the shrimp is tasty or funny to harass.