Phishies Inn

My bedroom gets sunlight no matter what direction, so it didn't surprise me when suddenly my 10 gallon freshwater tank suddenly got an algae growth started.

I'm not sure what kind of algae it is, whether it's "blue green" or "hair?". Let me go take a picture...

Okay, here we go...keep in mind I just did my weekly water change/cleanup about an hour ago, and in frustration I took my fingers and rubbed a lot of it off the leaves myself. Normally it's literally a nice slimey coat across the leaves...




But yeah, so either way I'm thinking since the sun is always going to be there that maybe an algae eater would just love the endless supply of it.

I was thinking otos, would they like my algae?

I don't know how much more bioload my tank can take. Right now it has 3 neon tetras, 3 zebra danios, 2 cory cats (who don't touch the algae, sadly), and 1 male betta.

I clean the tank every week and do a 10% water change, and rinse out the mechanical part of my filter. I haven't had the activated carbon in there for a few weeks now because it needed replacing and just haven't picked it up yet. Besides I hear the carbon can sometimes take the nutrients away from plants?

In any case, could I afford 2 oto cats in the tank as long as I keep up on my maintenance? I could start doing 20% water changes instead of 10 I guess. And would I need the carbon now thanks to the new bio load?

Butterfly

Lets positively ID what kind of algae you have before adding critters to eat it, ok?
http://www.plantgeek.net/article_viewer.php?id=9
Carol

susitna-flower

The first thing you need to address with your tank is that it is seriously overcrowded.

Your betta needs a 5 gallon tank all to himself. The rest that you list would overcrowd a 10 gal.....so you need to look for another tank. If you want some algae eaters like 3-5 otoes, or a bristlenose pleco, you might go for a 30 gallon.

Even if you have light in your room the algae is more controllable if you keep the bio load down.

With the fish you have, I'd be doing 50% water change a couple of times a week.

Phishies Inn

That's weird, this is the first time anyone's told me the tank was overcrowded. But I'll do more water changing regardless.

Butterfly, I can't really tell. The closest that's there is the blue/green, though it says it'll grow over anything...this stuff has only been on plants, hasn't moved anywhere else.

Edit: It said a common cause of blue/green was bad water quality. I did some tests...everything seems okay. My nitrates were between 0-20ppm...on the test slip everything was in the "normal" range except for alkalinity, which has always been low...is there something I can do to safely raise it up a bit?

Edit 2: I forgot to say, the water hardness (gh) is very high. So I'd need something that would raise the kh but either not effect or even better, lower the gh. I was reading about it on other sites, it says things air stones and similar things to help reduce the co2 would help? I'm only iffy about that because my betta hates a lot of water movement, I'd have to put it in a corner or something I guess....

Barbrella

It's hard keeping bettas with other fish. Even if they get along, they like different conditions. Bettas like high temps and very still water, while many other fish like high oxygen content, water movement and lower temps.

I would try and get the betta his own tank and in the meantime, up the water changes.

Phishies Inn

Well I don't really have the space for another tank right now lol. I just got a 55 gallon...it's sitting in the basement undergoing a massive cleaning (used saltwater tank, getting rid of all the hard algae)...I was orginally thinking of doing saltwater but I don't really have the money for it, so I might make it a freshwater. If I do I'll move the danios there, and maybe the cats. But the tetras would have to stay because I would have some angelfish if I did freshwater and they'll gobble my babies up!

But I just did a 45-50% water change today and they seem happy.