# is there any fish or cichlid that will clean sponge filters?



## CandidPets (May 21, 2015)

and eat food that goes to the bottom? eat things other fish wont?


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Specifically for sponge filters, the only critters I know of that will graze on them in any significant way are shrimp. The best ones would be Amano or Cherry shrimp, but there are others. In a community tank or one with larger fish, you'd want a larger shrimp, probably, or a cheap one, like the Ghost shrimp

But, many omnivorous species of fish will pick at sponges periodically, especially if they are really hungry. If the sponge has grown some algae, some herbivores may munch that, though it often will depend on the species of algae. Shrimp do a much better job on most types of algae.

Fry of many fish species are likely to pick at sponges while they're very small. That's because a mature sponge filter tends to have plenty of fry size food items to offer; fungi, infusorial creatures, or bacteria. Sponge filters are an ideal feeding resource for most shrimp fry.

As for eating from the bottom, there are quite a few fish who will happily take food from anywhere else they can find it. To some degree, this may depends on what they evolved to eat naturally. Mid-level feeders may be unwilling to chase food all the way down and surface feeding insectivores, like Hatchet fish, need their food floating. But plenty of species will chase food and take it from wherever it lands. I've kept Endlers for years, and a few Guppies; all of them take food from anywhere; they'll fight over algae tabs with the bottom feeders.

Ideailly, when you feed fish, you should give them no more than they are able to consume entirely, within, at most, two minutes or so. An exception is when you have bottom feeders who are eating sinking tabs, as they will need a lot more time to eat those and many of them eat at night. But if you can still find half the tab the next morning, you fed too much If you feed flakes and most of them hit the bottom before they're eaten, then it's also possible you're overfeeding the fish. Floating pellets should be gone inside two minutes unless it's a Betta fish, as Bettas often take their sweet time eating their floating pellets.

I can't comment on the habits of most of the cichlids because the only cichlids I ever kept were Angel fish. They will take food from the bottom. Even Betta fish will take food from the bottom! 

There are a number of true bottom feeding fish species, but they don't make good clean up crew. They will not thrive on leftovers. The most commonly seen bottom feeders include most of the loaches, Panda garras, most of the catfish including the corydoras species. All of these fish need a quality sinking diet and should also get some fresh food whenever possible. Some catfish truly enjoy various fresh veggies.

If you need clean up crew, then there are a number of snail and shrimp species you could try. Theyare all scavengers by nature, making them very well suited to the tasks of clean up crew. 

Mystery snails, MTS, and even the small Ramshorn types can all excel at clean up duty, but if you are concerned about being overrun with snails then the best bet would be Mystery snails. They don't eat healthy plants, ( unless they are starving) and they can't lay eggs underwater. This makes it easy to prevent reproduction; remove and crush any egg clutches ( egg cases) that appear. Typical spawning spots are on the underside of hoods, HOB filter boxes, and any glass surface above water. 

Shrimp might be any of the Neocaridinas ( cherry), Amanos, Ghosts and a few other smaller Caridinas, like C. propinqua ( Sunkist shrimp) or C. babaulti (often green in colour).

Amano & Sunkist shrimp need salt water for larval survival, so there wil be no baby shrimplets, but all the Neos' & C. babaulti have live young, though fish may well eat their fry. The Ghost shrimp's life cycle is 100% in fresh water; it's possible their larvae will survive.


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