jar05g

My tank is cycled. ammonia, and Nitrites=0, Nitrates=10. Temperature=80. It's a 29 gallon...and I have diatoms all over the gravel and decor. Could I treat the tank with some algae remover of some sort or do I have other options? I'm doing weekly 10% water changes.

Wolfgang8810

Diatoms will go away by themselves. They dont hurt any fish they are just unappealing. wait it out. You can do it!

MArk

jar05g

lol....it's so hard because they are sooooo nasty looking haha.

King_Snuggles

i got an oto and he treats them like candy. with in two days all of the algy was gone

Jacko

Diatoms are so soft that you could easily stir up the gravel during the water change and vacuum that up while you also scrub the sides of the tanks and use either a toothbrush or your fingers to get it off of decorations and plants.

Like King_Snuggles said, otos work really well. But they do need a well established tank, they will quickly eat you out of diatoms and then there won't be much algae left for them.

jar05g

What is an oto?

Butterfly

Oto = Otocinclus
http://www.fishlore.com/fishforum/otocinclus/
Carol

Johawk

Otos in a tank with tiger barbs and a red tailed shark... bad idea, correct? Just wondering because I would like something to eat the algae in my 29g but I'm pretty sure adding an Oto or 2 would be a bad idea with this setup.

jar05g

So...adding one or two of these otos will get rid of all my diatoms? And they will be ok in a tank full of different species of tetras?