Best cleaner fish for home aquariums

If you are reading this post you already should be a fish tank owner. Add some awesome looking fish and plants to it and watching the beauty of your own tank is a great experience. But when coming to cleaning it up, it will take time and effort. For that there some best cleaner fish that we can add our tank members

Having a good filtering system will help you to keep the clean water in the tank and maintain the water condition. But most filters don’t clean every garbage in a fish tank.

Algae are one thing that makes your tank messy. Filters cannot control it, but yes some heaters do. And the other thing is that most of the fish tanks will have food parts and other kinds of junks at the bottom of it.

This will make your tank not good for your fish. It will also change the water condition to the bad side.

So as one type of natural solution cleanup bottom junks and algae in a fish tank, we can add cleanup fish and algae eaters as the tank members of the fish tank.

The best cleaner fish that you can add into tanks

There are some good additions who act like bottom feeders, best cleaner fish and algae eaters in your freshwater fish tank. They are a good as your tank cleanup crew. These fish and other fish tank mates (Snails, Shrimps) will help you to clean up your tanks from bottom junks.

various types of freshwater bottom feeders and algae eaters that we add in our tank. Between them, below cleaner is a really good addition to your fish tank.

So I am not gonna talk about all the types here and I will write about few best cleaner fish and other cleaners that we can add.

Plecos

Pleco-fish
Pleco fish

Plecos are good bottom feeders. They are a type of suckermouth catfish.  The main purpose of adding Plecos into a tank is cleanup substrate and algae.

They live in the bottom of the tank mostly. This fish is kind of a silent fish in your fish tank.

This fish will be like 4 – 6 inches in size. Normally they love to hide and stay inside cave kind covered spaces. Plecos are peaceful to add with other fish also.

This fish will be a good solution for the algae in your fish tank. Also, Plecos are good bottom feeders to a fish tank

 Loaches  

Loach-fish
Loach fish

Freshwater Loach fish is also will be a good member of your cleanup crew. They are a few types of Loaches we can add in our fish tanks. Clown Loach, Kuhli Loach, Yoyo Loach, Botia Loach, and Zebra Loach will be good Loach types to add in your crew

These fish mostly live at the bottom of your tank and they love to live as groups also. This one also a good substrate cleaner and algae eater for your fish tank.

Loach fish are also one type of attractive freshwater fish so they will be one of the best addition to your fish tank.

 Corydoras Catfish

cory-catfish-corydoras
Cory Catfish (Corydoras)

Catfish are good additions to your fish tank. Catfish has a unique behaviours and a unique lifestyle. From the catfish types, Cory catfish (Corydoras) is a good addition to behave as a cleaner in your fish tank

They love to live the bottom space of the tank. Mostly they love sand bottoms and they are one type of bottom feeders you can add.

They are also small in size. Cory catfish are growing like 1 – 3.5 inches. This catfish is also good at eating algae. So this fish also will be a better addition to your tank.

Aquarium Snails

aquarium-snails
Aquarium Snails

Not only fish, but Snails are also one of the best cleaners in freshwater tanks. Snails are very famous to use as algae eaters. They mostly stay in tanks walls or other inside parts and decorations of the tank.

Aquarium Snails also help to make your tank look beautiful. There is various kind of freshwater aquarium Snails we can see in the freshwater world.

When adding snails you should care about controlling their breed, if not your tank may end up like a snail world.

Between different types of Snails, Apple Snail, Neritina Snail, Ramshorn Snail, Tiger Snail, and Mystery Snail are the most famous cleaners in aquariums.

 Otocinclus Catfish

This is another type of catfish which we can use a member of the cleanup crew. This catfish is also living at the bottom are of the fish tank. Also, this Otocinclus Catfish is a good algae eater.

The size of this fish is 1.5 – 2 inches. This catfish love to live as a group. This fish also good to add in planted tanks. And it’s also a bottom feeder.

Shrimps

cleaner-aquarium-shrimps
Aquarium Shrimps

This is another type of fish tank member that we can also use as a cleaner to our fish tank.

There are various types of Shrimps we can add to our aquarium. Shrimps are also living in the bottom of the aquarium and they are good at cleaning substrate and algae.

Shrimps are a good addition to the tank the same as cleanup fish. We can see many colorful and beautiful shrimps with different varieties. These guys also well for clean the food parts that stay at the bottom of the fish tank and will be an attractive addition to your fish tank.

Conclusion

In this article, I have written about a few yet best cleaner fish and other types of clears you can add in your freshwater tanks. I think now you have an idea of why it’s important to have cleanup fish in your tank.

When we are set up a tank we should think about the various types of fish and also the different benefits we can get from them our fish tank.

If we could add fish, shrimps, and snails in the way to get benefits by them, It would be a big help to have a nice tank setup and a good environment to all the fish live on it.

Even we can add these guys as our tank cleanup crew, It must use an aquarium filter system to your fish tank. Because these cleaners cant fully clean your tank. They just give you side support to control algae and keep a cleaner bottom for fish tank.

Add your thoughts in the comment box and if you need to update anything in this article or if you like to share your knowledge with people, just put a comment below and share what you think.

Don’t forget to read my other posts also. If you feel this is information u are always welcome to share with your other aquarium buddies.

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Fish for your planted tanks

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