What is the best clean up crew for a Cichlid tank?

[Adam]

My BNs poo like mad.  Piles of it, and there are only 3 juveniles.

Adam

[Jason]

See this is another reason I kinda wanted to avoid plecos. I have a white sand substrate and I find their 2 foot poops makes it look so messy. At least with the cichlids on NLS I don't find they poop as much or at least it's not as noticeable.

My dilemma with plecos is the fact that there is a lot of rock in this tank and if I put them in only to find they are messing it up more than cleaning it....I'll never be able to get them out again. too bad there wasn't another kind of fish that ate the pleco poo.

[darkdep]

I'm wondering if MTS do something with the Pleco Poo?  Cause I really never see any, and my tanks are stocked with MTS...

[Toss]

MTS will eat algae on the glass if there is no other food in the tank. Try not to use mag float (magnet thing) to clean, like Adam said..might scratch your glass. CAE also useless for algae on glass. BN is your best bet. Maybe try to get the albino ones .. long fin if you lucky If you have so much algae they will poo more, after your algae under control they should poo less. Try use timer so when the sun is on your tank the light should be off one hour before and after. It works for me, remember my tanks on second floor...I never clean the glass on those.

[blizzack1]

I'm wondering if MTS do something with the Pleco Poo?  Cause I really never see any, and my tanks are stocked with MTS...

My experience bears this out, and a photo over on cichlid-forum.com offered some overwhelming proof... I'll see if I can dig it up. 

[Demasonian]

I also keep BN plecos with my Africans, two in a 75 and two in a 40. Like DD said earlier, I can't tell the difference between pleco waste and cichlid waste. They do a good job at keeping the glass clean without the monumental mess of their larger cousins.

[Toss]

what i can say about the poo and mts is that they might not eat them all, only some leftover digestion. they do break them apart to very fine pieces which creates the illusion like they eat them all. you will notice when you gravel vac, a cloud of brown colour will come out from the gravel...that would be the poo.

[rkmike]

yeah, no cories...

I use zebra nerite snails in my 77gal, and will be adding 1 bn soon as he's big enough.  I'm not a big pleco fan either. The snails do a great job, but I have to still clean the glass sometimes b/c their little mouths can't get all of it.  There's cute little snail teeth designs left behind.    They're very pretty and aren't bothered by my africans at all though.

Anyone know if any LFS (or members) have any Zebra Nerites for sale? I haven't seen them in a while. I've got three in my 65g cichlid tank and would like to add more...

Mike

Edit:  Never mind, saw in another thread that Zapisto has some... (Thanks anyways!)