Am I going to regret this?

[Pixel]

I've had the same fish in my tank for a couple of years now, they get on well and are healthy (gold barbs, ruby red barbs, minnows, a pair of each). Doing a partial water change about once a week seems to keep things ticking over. However, we have had a big problems with algae, as the room is very bright all the time due to most of one wall being window, even covering the tank for part of the day only helps a bit. I got sick of cleaning the glass and ornaments (with old toothbrush, works quiet well if anyone is interested [busmile]) and decided there was room for a couple of sucky fish. Tank is quite small so didn't want to overstock.
Happened to be in garden centre which was about to close and quickly chose two sucking loaches. They have done a great job, tank is almost clean already and all fish seem happy...

BUT, I have foolishly googled sucking loaches and every single site says don't buy as they become aggressive and murder your other fish! At the moment they are only chasing each other around and the others are taking no notice but will this change and would you recommend I return them to the shop asap? Or are they sometimes ok?

Thanks very much [busmile]

Is it this one?
Hmm, yes, you might come to regret it; they do get aggressive, and very large (6 inches plus) and as they get older they eat less algae.

How big is your tank?

Algae is always best got rid of by treating the cause rather than the symptom. Too much light is just one of the things that can cause it, it's very likely that there are too many nutrients in the water- adding fish adds more nutrients and just makes the problem worse in the long run. Tap water phosphate is also quite high in some areas so it might be that you need some phosphate remover. Have you got any real plants in there?

Have you got a water test kit? What are the latest readings?

Yes that's the little blighter! I haven't got a test kit but I did have the water tested at the fish shop and they said it was fine and I always add tap safe when I do a water change as we have hard water. No real plants as they were getting on my nerves [bublush] only plastic ones.

Ah well thanks, you have confirmed what I thought, they aren't really suitable for my small tank. I think I'll wait until they start to grow a bit and then palm them off return them to where I bought them or another fish shop.