When setting up a new aquarium, most people often think about the fish that they are going to put in or how beautiful their aquarium will be. Instead, here at aquariums0, we completely shifted our mindset to focus on the clean-up crew first. This shift in the mindset enabled us to have less “routine” maintenance and more long lasting aquariums.
Here is our top 5 picks of the clean-up crew for your aquariums.
1. Live plants
Yes, you read it correct. There are so many benefits of having live plants in your aquariums. I know that keeping live plants might be hustle – especially for those that are just starting to the hobby – but I strongly recommend keeping at least some live plants in your aquariums. Some of the benefits of live aquarium plants are
- They provide additional filtration. In most cases (unless you’re setting up a tank using Walstad Method), you’ll have a mechanical filtration. Mechanical filtration circulates the untreated water through a filter medium (sponge, foam pads, filter floss etc..) and grabs the particles that are floating in the untreated water. In addition to your mechanical filtration, live plants will help remove carbon dioxide, ammonia, nitrate and fish waste from the water and use them as a fertilizer.
- They provide aeration. Just like other terrestrial plants – aquatic plants do photosynthesis which removes carbon dioxide and provides oxygen to the environment. Just like us, fish need oxygen to survive and they use the dissolved oxygen in the water.
- They help reduce the algae growth. When there’s excess food in the ecosystem (or in your aquarium) – algae will start to grow and feed on the excess food in the ecosystem. Having live plants will help reduce the excess food that algae can munch on so that your chances of seeing algae will be less and less.
2. Amano Shrimps
Amano shrimp is one of the best algae eating shrimp you can imagine. They can eat some algae types that no other shrimp or fish bother to eat like – string algae, hair algae. They are small scavengers, running all around in your aquariums, trying to pick up algae with their small legs and claws. One characteristics of amano shrimps are they tend to be lazy. If there’s excess food that they can grab on, they prefer the excess food over the algae and they don’t do a good job cleaning.
3. Corydoras
Corydoras are one of the best in class bottom-dwelling fish you can keep. They show their characteristics best when they are kept in groups – 8 or more since they are considered as a schooling fish. Corydoras hang in groups and search for the food that sink to the bottom, uneaten. They will consume this excess food at the bottom before they spoil your water and cause problems in your aquariums.
4. Snails
Not everybody likes to have snails in their aquariums and I totally get that. BUT, we offer snails to everybody here at aquariums0.com for a healthy ecosystem. It’s very rare to find a living species that eats almost anything. They eat excess food, fish waste – you read it correct -, decayed plants, dead fish etc… Ramshorn snails and Nerite snails the ones that we like the most.
5. Plecos
Plecos are can grow big and they want spaces to suck on and swim but there are some smaller types which we can keep in our aquariums. They usually scavenger around, suck on the aquarium glass and eat the alge that grows. They also munch on the driftwood if you have one in your aquarium.
These are the top 5 picks of ours but the list can be extended. You can add the following clean-up crew members to your aquariums depending on the need.
- Otocinclus
- Loaches
- Siamese Algae Eater
- Mollies and Platies