General Care Discussion :: Chinese Algae Eater MEAN ^^

[SINI5T3R]

So I took my Chinese Algae Eaters out of my turtle tank as they are getting pretty big now. My big one is about 2 1/2 inches already and man oh man is he mean. he chases the other algae eaters around and today i put some feeder goldfish in there and guess what...my Big boy waited for a goldfish to swim by and when one got close enouph, he used his quick speed to jump on it and ATE ITS EYE OUT!!! one bite and his eye was gone and a little bit of his face..and these are big goldfish too not those small ones they usually have.

So I sat there for a while and watched him pick off the same gold fish since it kept getting near him and you can actually see when he sucks real hard and just takes a big chunk of skin right off the goldfish...its pretty cool but def something to not be in my turtle tank after that haha...im happy I took them out now because I dont want bite marks on my turtles...they dont seem to mess with the Big convicts in the tank tho at all..

Also does anyone know how to tell Male from Female in Chinese Algae Eaters?

[coreyvht]

o, lol i know mines biger and ever sense i put it in my 55 gal hes gotton mean like really mean ive beeen trying to catch him all day but hes so fast and its pissing me off so much lol

[SINI5T3R]

o, lol i know mines biger and ever sense i put it in my 55 gal hes gotton mean like really mean ive beeen trying to catch him all day but hes so fast and its pissing me off so much lol

Yeah they get big pretty fast and they actually start to get nice coloring too..I wounder if they are hard to breed because ive got a diff Chinese Algae eater in there thats a little bit smaller and they just chase eachother all day like there playing...they also do it with the Black and Gold Algae Eater so I wounder if they can Hybridnize

[coreyvht]

im sure its possible but like a feel like holding my chinese algea eater by its tail and letting my turts devour it lol is that mean ...ireally dont care ...hahaha lol

[coreyvht]

o you have chilids right

[SINI5T3R]

Yeah I got rid of 12 of them today on craigslist tho so Now ive got about 25 left...

[coreyvht]

haha lol ...i just bought 2today there really small umm have u noticed..do they grow fairly fast ..and what do they eat

[SINI5T3R]

I feed mine regular Fish Flakes and minnows/gold fish...they will eat basically any fish smaller then them. and they sort of grow fast..they get pretty big tho...how much did you buy your babys for? I got some 6 inchers...there HUGE .. everyone that came to get them all wanted babys so now i have nothing but big as.s fish

[coreyvht]

i got um for like 6 bucks

[coreyvht]

i almost got some parrot chilids i think thats what they where called they where kinda uglly looking lol

[SINI5T3R]

Yeah i tryed takin some of my cichlids to the pet shop but they said they still had a few babys so ima wait..cuz i got huge ones..they prob give me like 10$ each store credit and i got like 23 of them so thats alot of store credit rite there..get me a turtle dock and maybe a new 10 gal for feeders

[roseK]

idk how to gender them but they are known to be VERY aggressive once they grow larger.

they also only eat algae when they are young. misleading name pretty much. not a good fish for community tanks