LC Scotty

About 6 months ago, I had a lovely planted tank with Wisteria, Ludwigia, a Java fern, an Anubia, and some long grass along the back wall. I got a bit lax with the water changes, and ended up with this long stringy green algae all over my tank, decorations, and plants.

I pulled everything out of the tank except the gravel and the fish. I scrubbed and boiled everything. Yet, that pesky long green stringy algae keeps returning.

Today, I put in two Otos, some plastic plants, and built a small (~3-4 inch diameter) cave out of rocks with plenty of room for both Otos. Will they eat the algae? I keep reading about their love of brown algae-will anyone eat my green algae?

My tank is not big enough for a pleco, and I'm not crazy about the idea of a CAE either.

Any advice? Should I consider herbicide?

TFA101

Bristle-nose catfish love the green algae (but they wont last on it). Many pictures with "before and after" have shown the BN catfish's cleaning talent is extraordinary. These algae things dont appear as dots on the tank walls does it? If so, you'd have to manually remove them.

LC Scotty

I do get occasional green spots on the glass, but that is not what I'm worried about. It's this pervasive hair that attached to every surface. Imagine trying to de-algae a wisteria with this all over it's pointy little leaves. It was bloody impossible.

TFA101

siamese algae eaters LOVE hair algae like you describe. That stuff is also called thread algae. Keep one and he'll eat all that stuff from any surface possible. Check 'em out! (below)

http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/sae.htm