Isabella

I don't know if it would be safe to move them to my 75 gallon tank after only 1-2 weeks of quarantine, but I am really starting to get some serious algae in my 75 gal. tank ! I need some algae eaters in there ASAP! And the SAE will be at my LFS maybe a week from now, and I repeat: MAYBE ...

neverendingninja

My otos eat the tiny bits of algae I do get in my tank. If their bellies start to get smaller, I feed them some veggies for a week and let the algae come back a bit.

COBettaCouple

is the algae just on the glass or is it on some decorations. When we had those otos in quarantine, i'd take a decoration with algae on it out of the tank that had the algae buildup and they'd happily clean it off for me.

Isabella

Dave, it's beginning to grow on my plants! Particularly on the top of my Vals! I need algae eater(s) in my 75 gal. tank really ASAP! It seems that I get more algae after each addition of Flourish. The less Flourish I add, the less algae I get. I am getting mainly hair algae on the tops of my Vals, and some brown/green algae on other plants. But if I take no action, there'll be a lot of algae everywhere very soon.

I think I'll move the Otos this weekend. But I need everyone's OK on that first (particularly Carol's or Dino's and yours Dave). The Otos are doing GREAT by the way. They're really FAT now! I know they're healthy, I can tell without a doubt.

POTENTIAL PROBLEM: Otos are very pH sensitive, right? Will moving them from around neutral pH to around 7.8 pH hurt them? Of course, I'll be acclimatizing them for at least 3 hours.

Butterfly

The 3 hour acclimatization should be fine. They are really healthy looking and will be fine until they find the algae in the 75G
Carol

Isabella

Thank you Carol Oh, they will indeed find a lot of algae in the 75 gallon tank! I am just about to perform a 30% water change in my 75 gallon tank - well actually, I'll make it a 40-50% change, since I'll be adding Otos to the tank this weekend - and I think I'll leave the algae alone this time. I always cleaned them off tank surfaces manually, but now that the Otos will be introduced to the tank, there better be some algae in there. I hope they like green and brown algae. I doubt they'll eat hair algae, will they? Because they'd have a big feast with this type of algae in my tank, lol.

P.S. I'm thinking of buying 2 more Otos, so that there is a total of 6 of them. They're so small they really can't produce that much waste. But, I've first to do my inch-per-gallon calculation (as well as taking into account all of my fishies' body mass).

COBettaCouple

yea.. that Flourish.. i guess it makes sense that it feeds the algae as well as the plants. I think acclimating the otos over that long should adjust them to the change in pH. I'm not sure if they eat hair algae since we only had green & brown algae for ours to eat.

Isabella

Dave, they most likely don't eat hair algae . That's why I want to get the true SAE, because in every profile on them (and in my freshwater encyclopedia) it says they'll eat brush/hair algae. My GAE does not eat this type of alge, and as Carol says, the BN pleco won't eat it either. So it seems the true SAE is my only choice.

P.S. there was a period of time when I didn't use Flourish for about a month or more, and I had no algae then. Interesting, isn't it. The plant growth was very good, even without Flourish. With Flourish, I don't see any noticeable plant growth, but instead, I am seeing explosions of algal growth.

You know what I am beginning to think? That adding commercial fertilizers becomes necessary when you're using CO2 injections. Then, plants are able to use up the nutrients faster. But without CO2, they're much slower at absorbing nutrients, so more of the nutrients are available to algae. I will stop using Flourish until (and if) I get a CO2 system. Unless my plants start dying. You wouldn't believe how fast the algae can take over your tank after you've added Flourish to a non-CO2- injected tank. LITERALLY a few days! I am apalled .