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I think I have my 55 gal tank fully stocked, with 10 neon rainbows, 6 harlequine rasboras, 2 SAE, 1 Zebra danio( only survivor of 10) AND 6 emerald corys .
Also about to come in from the quarantine tank, the 10 gal, are 4 otto cats( if I can catch them, and 4 fan shrimp.
At the moment the 10 gal has the otto and shrimp in it and the beard algae is going crazy, I mean crazy, on plant, glas heater and rock. I only add a couple of algae wafers twice a week , which are eaten quickly by shrimp and ottos. So how do i get rid of the beard algae, and then what to place in the 10 gal?

What is your lighting and water change schedule, and is the tank planted?

water change once a week, 30% to 40%.
lights 12 hrs a day, which i have been reducing to see if that helps.
planted with wisteria which was growing fast until it is covered with BA.

Hi,
Cut your lights back to 10 hrs/day. What is your total
wattage of the bulb(s)?

Here is a site that discusses the various types of algae
and how to get rid of it.

http://www.otocinclus.com/articles/algae.html

In your case since it grows primarily on the leaves of
slow growing plants, you snip off the affected
plant leaves and allow new ones to grow in their place.

And/Or, you add another fish. Personally, the only time I had
troubles with algae was when I was feeding algae wafers.
I'd quit and switch to vegetables. Cucumber slices, peas,
etc.

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Never liked algae wafers. Not entirely sure why but they just overall didn't seem that great. They don't even have that much plant matter in them for algae eating fish. I'd get a meaty food for the shrimp but something very fine. They would greatly prefer to filter their food from the water than to pick it up off the bottom. I actually use liquid marine invertebrate food for mine and squirt it in front of the filter output so it spreads across the tank. Crushing up some flakes into powder also works and then just sprinkle it in front of them while they are filtering the water. If you want a sinking food for them shrimp pellets are better than algae wafers. For the otos vegetables work better. While they'll eat the occasional algae wafer it's not really that common and probably not a good longterm diet for them.

For now you might want to blackout the tank to get ahead of the algae. Leave the lights off and if the room is well lit cover the sides of the tank in dark paper or plastic. Then remove as much algae by hand as you can. Hopefully in a few days the algae will start to die and the plants will still look good. Remove the dying algae with lots of small water changes and sucking it out with the gravel vac tube and then resume your normal lighting. Although I'd cut it down to 8-10hours a day depending on how much light your running.

A 10g is best suited to a species tank. Think about what type of fish you like and pick one. Breeding pairs or groups of small gouramis, dwarf cichlids, shell dwelling cichlids, or small puffers are some common choices.

The algae is likely due to a deficiency of some kind, if you're not dosing any fertilizers. Plants get deficient, get weakened, are unable to use the nutrients that are available in the water, and succumb to algae. A permanent solution may be to start dosing all your micros and macros. From what I've seen, few tanks that have regular dosing of all plant nutrients ever have algae problems.

Lighting is about 1w per gal.
The deficiency is a good point as there is not a lot happening in terms of nutrients in there. I have lots of plants from my bigger tank I can bring over, so I will clean up and add new plants, add ferts regularly and restock, and see how it goes.

maybe a circulation issue? i had a problem with algae covering the leaves of my plants which i countered by reducing the light time. i noticed a couple of fish visiting the surface to take air and figured maybe the plants were breathing more then they were photosynthesising so added a bubble wall across the back of the aquarium. the resulting increased water movement resulted in the algae disappearing quickly- does the algae seem to form mostly in spots where the circulation is minimal? (this forms dead spots where nutrients build up leading to algae). my set up is medium light and low tech- increased surface agitation lowers the co2 levels needed by the plants but if your running low tech too it probably wont matter.

try moving your decor and seeing if it makes any difference.

good luck with the algae!

Circulation will only lower co2 levels in tanks where co2 is being injected. Otherwise it will probably raise levels of co2 because the plants in a non-co2 tank are taking in the co2 faster than it is being replaced by surface absorption.