SAE and Cabomba caroliniana

[mwhite4823]

I added four 3" Siamese algae eaters to my 75G planted tank about a month ago to control the algae. This they do very well. About two weeks ago I noticed pieces of my Cabomba floating loose each morning. What was a reasonable stand of Cabomba is by now just a few remaining stems.

I read somewhere that SAEs can destroy fine leafed plants like Cabomba. Does anyone have experience with them?

[Aaron]

Yes, mine eats some types of mosses and most any fine leaved plant. I am getting rid of it for this reason...mostly the moss issue.

[krisw]

Yeah... I too have had some SAE's that like to strip moss down to just the thread. Of course, I've kept others that seem to leave it alone. I imagine it depend whether or not they have other sources of food. Personally, I really like them, regardless of how much algae they graze. I have 3 monster sized one's in my 75g, that pretty much ignore all algae/plants, and just eat shrimp pellets that I feed every morning. If you like the fish, and don't have an algae problem, you might try supplementing their diet with this kind of stuff, or algae wafers.

[mwhite4823]

I am trying to keep all of them well fed, without overdoing it. They are a pretty hungry bunch and eat all that I give them in about 2 minutes. I also add a large slice of zucchini every other day and it disappears, skin included, in about 1 day.

Is there any fine leafed plant like Cabomba that they don't tear up?

[inexorable]

My 180 gal tank is full of fine leaved plants, and I have six SAE's. I like to replace them about once a year with small SAE's. I drop the big guys off at a LFS. They get kind of boisterous when they get bigger. The little ones don't eat fish food. When they get bigger, they are aggressive about getting their share of the fish food. They also make my dwarf cichlids nervous with their hyperactivity. Still, they tirelessly go apesh*t eating algae off the leaves of all of my plants all day long. I can't imagine how ugly and full of algae my plants would be without them. I have had ones that ate java moss before. I believe that you have to stock them in your tank in proportion with your algae. If there is algae for them to eat, I think they won't eat plants. I currently have mayaca fluviatilis, rotala wallichii, myriophyllum mattogrossense, myriophyllum tuberculatum, red cabomba, and hydrotriche hottoniiflora, all fine leaved plants. No damage. I just looked at my java moss on the driftwood. Somebody's been eating it I still say they're invaluable for algae management and java moss is a pest any way. I hate that stuff!. It gets all over the tank and grows all under the stems af all my plants and is probably my biggest aquascping nuisance overall, removing unwanted java moss from all over my tank. I am just about at the point of exchanging them too. They're about 3 1/2 inches. I submit that the small ( 1 in ) ones don't eat java moss. Some damaged moss is a worthwhile tradeoff for all the algae they eat.

Dave