Long-armed shrimp or Ancistrus cirrhosus - which is the star algae-eater?

[bitbot]

Hi, need some educated guesses:

I recently put two long-armed shrimp (3-4cm) and an Ancistrus catfish (4-5cm) in a small tank to quarantine them before they went into other tanks. This tank had a film of brown algae on the two sides I don't clean.

I was surprised to see, a few days after introducing the shrimp and the catfish, that the algae was all gone, seemingly from one day to the next!

As I have a bit of an algae situation on rocks in a 40 gallon tank, I though one of them might be interested in a clean-up job; but is it the shrimp or the catfish?

I've seen then both grazing around the tank, but didn't see either them particularly working on that algae.





Supplementary questions:

Can anyone ID the shrimp? I think it's a northern Australian species.
The catfish was sold as A. cirrhosus.

The 40 gallon has Pakistani / yoyo loaches. The largest one occasionally catches and eats a red cherry shrimp, though normally they ignore each other. Would he be a danger to the long-armed shrimp? They are already about twice as long as an RCS.

 

[TheFishBoss97]

I think the shrimp would be safe in the 40G with the loaches as long as it is long as you say it is. I think it is the catfish that ate the algae since most "sucker" catfish are very active at night like plecos, and will get rid of your tank glass algae problems. I'm not 100% sure about that though.

 

[bitbot]

Thanks Boss.

 

[gumby1]

its a glass shrimp mate.
cheers

 

[verbal]

I would guess the BN plecos.

 

[toddnbecka]

Shrimp are useless for cleaning algae off of glass, and longarm shrimp are more predatory than cherry shrimp. Any shrimp species is vulnerable after molting before the new shell hardens, the loaches would likely tear them apart.

 

[James0816]

Can anyone ID the shrimp?

I'm sure the BN is the one having the snarf-fest.

As for the shrimp, it appears to be an Indian Whisker Shrimp.