# Are there any cold-water Algae Eaters?



## Seaman

I bought an algae eater today (chinese algae eater) for my Goldfish tank, and from what I read on Yahoo Answers, it was a mistake for two reasons:

1. They will die in because they need a heated tank to survive.
2. They only eat a minimal amount of algae since they are the cheaper Chinese variety and not the Siamese.

I am thinking about returning my algae eater. Does anyone know of a better fish for my un-heated Goldfish tank?


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## FishMatt

How cold is the tank and how big is the tank?


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## Tallonebball

Yeah a pleco will die in like 60 or less degrees, but if its a goldfish tank inside your house then room temperature is probably fine.


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## Mikaila31

yeah I would get rid of the Chinese algae eater for the reasons you gave above and it will also get aggressive as it gets older. For cool water I would go with some hillstream loaches, but they wont really clean algae. Not a lot of fish will. Algae is a sign of imbalance. It means there is a problem, but the algae is not the problem itself. How big is the tank? what is in it? How old is the tank? What is your regular maintenance like?


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## Corwin

you could always try for snails, though your goldfish may eat them.


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## pinetree

I keep goldfish, but don't have an algae eater. I just do a weekly glass scrape and that works well enough for me. A lot of goldfish keepers keep bristlenose plecos because they don't get too large and are not too aggressive. I'm not sure how cold of water they can tolerate, but I know people that keep their goldfish in water 70-75 and the BN's do fine.


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