how to remove black hair alge chemical free

[lpiasente]

I have seen a few places that were keeping gold fish in with their discus, funny combination I know but i really love gold fish so I got a couple to put in just for fun. In the last month I have watched them strip all the black hair alge from my plants they seem to looooove it.

[BigDaddyAdo]

Very cruel mate IMO. GF are cold water fish.

[lpiasente]

I thought cold water fish as well but o/s in tropical climate they only live in warm water. Even in hotter parts of Australia they are in warm water all the time so ??????. Oh and they are very very happy. I'd like to know what makes that cruel?

[m.ingram]

Its funny how people say its cruel to keep goldfish with discus . I have done it in the past and they have been really active and thrived and grew really quick .I would only take them out when they where getting to big for the discus to compete with.As i have said before on this forum i do know an importer who keeps goldfish with his discus and has done for years he uses them in his bb tanks rather then having bn.He keeps ryukins ranchus and all the exotics and they thrive .I to have kept ryukins orandas and ranchus with discus with not a problem .

[rburrowes]

Not only have I found them to eat the alge, but also the Discus waste.

I know of a discus importer that uses gold fish for that purpose

[ILLUSN]

Some of the fancy goldfish do very poorly in water any cooler then 24C, i've seen beutiful examples of these fish in a 26C aquarium, they were stunning, still dont know how well they'd fair at 30C, the oxygen saturation of the water would be lower and their metabolisum would be working twice as hard i wouldn't expect them to last more then 2 or 3 years, as oppose to the 15+ yr old long fin comets i have in my pond.

[lpiasente]

No wonder I don't see much poop in the tank

[Tommo]

IMO they will be fine :)

[lpiasente]

So I continued on with them in the tank and they ate all the alge. They seem very happy but they have grown very very big and are WAY too boisterous for the discus. The discus started to hide and would't eat as the gold fish were like great big insinkeraters. As soon as I took the goldies out my discus were back to normal. So tried tested and ditched :) .
P.S I am slowly lowering the temp of the tank the goldies are in so they can be returned to normal water temps.

[swampy1972]

Goldfish aside, the best way I've found to remove BHA is with true SAEs. They seem to love the stuff and will happy live in Discus conditions.
Steer away from Flying Foxes (they look the same) because as they get older they get very lazy going for normal food over algae and can become a bit bossy.
HTH.

[lpiasente]

Thanks