The cleaning myth

One common misconception is many of these species will not need to be fed, instead eating the algae off the aquarium sides, but this is simply a fantasy. I keep

and along with a large amount of black beard algae, and I have to routinely remove it while they just watch me. The algae they eat in the wild are pretty difficult to grow to any extent and aufwuchs content in the tank will be so low that it will never meet their high demands.