balitorids (stone suckers)

Question
QUESTION: hi wonder if you can explain why my suckers keep dying i have a 90 litre tank with 6 goldfish in and 1 weather loach first off we had 1 stone sucker which died unexpectedly after about 6 weeks so we bought this new tank and another 2 stone suckers one of which has died after 2 weeks and the remaining 1 is turning white but seems healthy (at the moment) fins are still intact we do not have any special food for them as we where told they live of the algae on the glass and will eat the remains of the algae pellets that we put in tank for loach, upset that we have lost 2 now since xmas, thanks for any information

ANSWER: Hi Steve:  what is your water temperature?  I think honestly that they are starving to death.  Try adding some sinking pellets for them in addition to extra sinking algae wafers for the loaches... How many loaches do you have?  You would really have to have an algea epidemic to keep a medium size catfish alive... so you have to supplement their diet.... let me know... dave....

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: hi thanks for the advice, the variety of stone suckers we have are not bottom feeders they only stay on the glass and a pebble that we have in the tank they are not like catfish, so what sort of pellets would you advise? we have only 1 weather loach which is about 5 or 6 inches long and this eats both left over food and algae wafers, also the algae that is accumalting on the white pebble we have is a brown coulour could this be poisining them at all or does the colour not matter we have done a master test on the water and all levels are fine, here is a link as to what stone suckers we have http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/show_article.php?article_id=142
thanks again in advance steve

Answer
Hi Steve:  You can add more of the white stones for the algae to grow on... They may not understand that there is food right in front of them.  Brown algae is not bad and it is not poisonous... you could try to add a little more light to your tank to see if the green algae will grow...just be careful you don't add too much light or you will just have a green tank.  Keep me posted... dave