Where to get Garra rufa?

[Phishee]

Hi,
Anyone knows where to get Garra Rufa? I heard that it can eat algae. Hope to get a few for my planted aquarium.

It is commonly called as doctor fish cause it is said that it can eat up the diseased skin.

[cairocks]

I got 2 from Y618, also seen at Ecoculture and Far East Aquatic. Quite pretty and cute fishes though I wish they spend more time on the glass than to hide within my moss/crypt/drift wood jungle of my tank.

[Phishee]

Thanks Cairocks.

Do you mean that they don't really eat algae?

[benny]

Phishee,

I think for your planted aquarium, you should keep otos for clearing brown algae, twig catfishes for clearing new green spot algae, yamato shrimps for clearing hair/thread algae.

Cheers,

[Phishee]

Benny,
As you said, I have different fishes eating different types of algae.

I would like to get Garra Rufa as another collection of algae eating fish because I find it quite cute & active.

[Quixotic]

I have moved this here as this is discussion on the availability of fish in the LFS.

I got 2 from Y618, also seen at Ecoculture and Far East Aquatic. Quite pretty and cute fishes though I wish they spend more time on the glass than to hide within my moss/crypt/drift wood jungle of my tank.

I am quite certain that it is G. flavatra that you bought. See this previous dicussion thread, where there is a picture of G. flavatra.

http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...ighlight=garra

I doubt G. rufa is readily available in our LFS yet. As mentioned by Wackytpt in that thread, G. rufa is a controlled fish. And this is what is quoted in Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_fish

The species occurs in the river basins of the Northern and Central Middle East, mainly in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. It is legally protected from commercial exploitation in Turkey due to concerns of overharvesting for export.

[wasabi8888]

Benny

What is twig catfishes? are they effective in removing green spot algae on glass?

is this the picture

http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/img...whiptail_2.jpg

[cairocks]

Oh, thanks, found out that my 2 samples are G. flavatra indeed. They do nibble along the glass from time to time, guess they are something there that they do feed on. But most of the time, I see only one while the other one hide the whole day. I was wondering if they had jumped out on the thrid day I got them as they hid the whole day, only to reappear a few days later. Even now, I rarely see both of them at the same time. But it seems they are now responding more and more when I feed my fishes.