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otto?

There aren't any fish that will really eat spot algae. You have to manually remove it and try to find the reason it's growing.

I have 2 flying foxes and 2 otto's in my 55gal. The foxes are always bussy and the otto's do a good job as well.

i am pretty sure its spot algae, its in a few places on the front glass and quite abundant on the back glass, so far by bristlenose shows no interest in it, infact he rarly eats off the glass at all.

My pair happily lie on all my bogwood surfaces. Though, generally speaking, spot algae, in a well balanced tank, should not appear anywhere other than the glass.

My 2 farlowellas didn't do much for spot algae. It's only because they prefer to eat on the glass to anywhere else that they had any effect at all on the spot algae. By choice they went after softer green algaes especially on the tall piece of driftwood. They aren't too bad of algae eaters except their body shape keeps them from getting smaller areas or small plant leaves. Mine also had trouble moving around when I put them in a 29g compared to my 55g. For eating algae on glass in a larger tank they do a pretty good job. Better than the bristlenose is doing so far. For smaller tanks and plant leaves I'd rather have otos.

What kind of algae? Farlowella are, IMO, far better than any conventional neoplecostominid or ancistrinid at keeping spot algae to a minimum.

Otto's are great Algae Eaters.


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ottos r my fave little rascals...they r present in my 3 tanks.

You just need to know three letters:

O T O


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are there any small catfish that feed on algae other than the bristlenose?

I agree with Cup Of Lifenoodles...
Farlowella Acus is a superb algae eater that
puts most others to shame.
Never a spot of algae in a tank with a Farlowella
Cat.

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but as its green spot algae is there anything that will eat it? and if not what should we be looking at to get rid of it?

Good news: green spot algae is an indicator of good tank health, as it has the same requirements as most higher plants, and is entirely impossible to completely prevent. However, most algae eating fish should at least have a nibble. I find it odd that your ancistrus has not reduced any of it.

Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 29-Oct-2005 21:22

My royal pleco does a really good job and my rubbernose tries to keep up.

The only effective spot algae eater I had was when my clown plecos in the tank with the yoyos weren't getting any food. The yoyos kept making off with all the food. Given the choice none of my algae eaters would touch spot algae. They had to be half starved to have any effect on it.

I dunno, most experiences with a variety of algae eaters generally considered "effective" tend to differ from your observations. Maybe it's just the indivdual fish. Personally, I can't replenish my algae supply fast enough for my oto flexilis and farlos, thus, I feed vegetables every three or so days. On the flip side, I've never noticed panaqolus feeding on sizeable amounts of algae. They should have a steady diet of wood, regardless.




Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 01-Nov-2005 00:38

well i am getting another adult bristlenose today, maybe there isenough algae on the rocksto feed1and the added compertition forfoodwill makethem look harder on the glass, ill just see how they go.
someone recomended american flagfish but i have never seen them for sale round here.

On the flip side, I've nhaven't noticed panaqolus feeding on sizeable amounts of algae

I actually feel that way about my 2 bn pleco.

On the flip side, I've never noticed panaqolus feeding on sizeable amounts of algae. They should have a steady diet of wood, regardless.

They had a huge chunk of driftwood but the 29g was never cleaner of algae than with the 2 clown plecos. The 2 in the 29g though were 1/3rd the size of the ones in my other tank that were getting fed a variety of other foods. The ones in that tank didn't really eat algae and they all started at about the same size. I moved them out of the 29g and put in a bristlenose but the tank is coated in more algae than ever. There's also a pair of otos in there but they only eat the soft algae on the rocks or plants and don't touch the glass.
The farlowella in the 90g won't touch the spot algae. It very obviously eats around it and goes after the fuzzy algae on the driftwood. The 55g ended up with a coating of spot algae on the glass when the co2 quit and the farlowellas barely touched it. They kept all other algae away but only cleaned 1 corner of spot algae when they'd run out of other algae.
They may all be effective algae eaters but they have not been any use on spot algae. Nothing I've had has touched spot algae unless starving.