livetowin

hey everybody long time no talk a quick question? I have a piece of fake drift wood in my tank that has some really bad alge on it now I've tried scrubbing it but it doesn't come off the color of it is almost like a forest green and some is even white. I have an oto but he wants nothing to do with it now there is some brown growing on the sand near the glass I do preform regular maintence on the tank but it keeps growing back all my parameters are good the tank is also out of sunlight if anyone would be able help me get rid of this with out using chemicals please message

Shawnie

sounds like a combo of different algaes...diatoms are probably the brown and the green could be from too much lighting, over feeding, or a number of other causes...as far as the otto, they usually do a great job but they need to be in schools of 4-6 so your one is probably lonely and not doing his job because of insecurity..do you have room for a few more in your tank? that would help alot im sure

dancerhas

Otto's are pretty tiny fish and can only eat so much. Our 2 little otto's ate all of our brown algae in our 10G betta tank when we had incandescent lighting. They had it clean as a whistle in 3 days. Then when we upgraded the lighting it became too much for them to eat so we got 2 more otto's for our school.

You could consider it a blessing knowing your otto won't starve.

agabr123

if it's really a problem you can get some snails, too, they're surprisingly fast and will go to town on it!

cerianthus

Sound like beard/brush algae. Try tougher brush, lol. Only fish i know of which will eat beard algae is Siamese Algae Eater (not chinese) if compatible with your fish. There are shrimp which can do same but cant to remember the name. Got it. Caridina japonica, japanese marsh shrimp. Again only if compatible with your fish.