Best Fish To Eat Algae Off Of Gravel

TylerFerretLord

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I found out today what the cause of my algae problem was. My sister's friend, who has been staying with us, turns on the aquarium light as a night-light for her daughter. I was able to scrub most of the algae off the glass and ornaments, but the gravel is still covered.

What would be the best fish to eat it? I'm going to get a rubber or a bushy nose plec, but I think they may be too big. Any other cheap fish?
 
BN pleco as well as any other pleco will work great. BNs stay small (around 5 inches)
 
If it's on the gravel and the lights have been on too long, my guess would be that it is blue green algae. If that is the case, there aren't any fish that will eat it. Actually BGA is an bacteria called cyanobacteria and not really an algae at all. Once it is in the tank, it is extremely hard to get rid of.
 
I'm not sure on the type of algae, although i'd certainly I.D. it if i were you.
I'd have said parotocinclus jumbo or another parotocinclus species would be ideal, they take small pieces of gravel and roll them in their mouths to eat off of and are excellent scavengers.
They get to 2" length and are best kept in groups of 4 or more.....
pitbullfungus1-1.jpg

In my experience and from what i've read; otos prefer to spend their time on tank glass, rocks, wood, leaves, canister filters anything but the substrate. But i could be wrong.
 
If it's on the gravel and the lights have been on too long, my guess would be that it is blue green algae. If that is the case, there aren't any fish that will eat it. Actually BGA is an bacteria called cyanobacteria and not really an algae at all. Once it is in the tank, it is extremely hard to get rid of.

Nope, it's not that.

It's green/brown and only a thin layer.
 
In my experience and from what i've read; otos prefer to spend their time on tank glass, rocks, wood, leaves, canister filters anything but the substrate. But i could be wrong.
That was my experience when I had otos. I never saw them on the bottom (except when they died) theyspent the biggest majority of their time attached to the glass. As a matter of fact, I don't know that any fish eat algae from the bottom. Since it is attached to the substrate, they would also get gravel or sand with the algae. I think all fish prefer to eat it off leaves and the glass.

I think the brownish green stuff may also be a form of BGA but not certain. I had that same type stuff in one of my tanks and couldn't get rid of it. i would vacuum it up completely and it would be back in a week. That was a betta tank and I didn't have an algae eater of any kind in the tank.
 
I think the brownish green stuff may also be a form of BGA but not certain. I had that same type stuff in one of my tanks and couldn't get rid of it. i would vacuum it up completely and it would be back in a week. That was a betta tank and I didn't have an algae eater of any kind in the tank.

It looks like this, just not as bad.
diatom6_200lighten.jpg


If I recall correctly, cyanobactera form a slime coating over everything? This is just brown spots on everything, and the mollies are picking at it.
 
I have never seen my Otos eat off the substrate...and most algae eaters are not fans of brown algae. They do this weird "farming" thing however where they will let a patch of algae grow out on the glass and then they'll eat it. >< I have seen some of my other fish pick at soft green algae that grows on the substrate, but they won't touch the brown.

What kind of substrate are you using? I've found that when I deep gravel vac a lot of the brown algae gets knocked off by the agitation of the gravel in the syphon and sucked out.
 
A good aggresive gravel vacuming would clean it up. I suck the siphone half full of gravel and shake it as i lift up so the rocks rub together as they fall. You can get alot of the algae this way. I do it quit often at work.
 

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