Just Give Me A Quick Heads Up Here

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Wait a minuite! I just noticed! I do not have a algea eater or a "clean up crew". Is it possible to add some kind of an algea eater? If not, than maybe we can take something away from the stocking to make room for it? C'mon give me some idea's (but thanks for all the replies so far!)

If you don't have any algae in the tank then there's little point in getting algae eating fish unless you really like the fish in question and would keep it whether you had algae in the tank or not.

Oto's are about the only algae eating fish that can fit in a tank of your size, however they are quite sensitive/fragile fish and are not recommended for new tank set ups or recently cycled tanks, because they are so sensitive to water quality.
They are also sociable fish and it is recommended that you keep them in groups of at least 3-6 or more, however it can be quite difficult to acclimatise oto's to matured/established tanks in the long run and they may still randomly die in the first month or two for no apparent reason.
The theory why they sometimes die like this is that oto's tend to get quite starved in transport from the fish farm to the petshop (they are only little fish with little stomaches after all, and so get hungry quickly), these fish need a special gut bacteria to digest algae and when oto's starve their gut bacteria also starves starts to die off, making it difficult for the oto's to obtain the nesarsary nutrition from their diet when they do get the chance to eat again. The theory why oto's tend to survive better in larger groups in the early days of their life in their owners tank, is that oto's can pick up the nesarsary gut bacteria from each others waste and the more oto's you have, the more likely they are to quickly restore their special gut bacteria nesarsary for good digestion.

The best way to help ensure any oto's you get survive, is to only buy oto's which have had a least 3-4days rest in the petshops tank before being bought by you, and to make sure you have some algae in your tank which they can imediately start to eat (because oto's do tend to move onto prepared foods that easily, the best food for them by far is fresh algae) .

 

[jennybugs]

How about some amano shrimp for algae eating?

BTW for what it's worth, sparkling gourami are stunning little fish

Harlequins are nice and there's also glowlight rasboras (hengel's rasbora) that are a little more colourful than the harlequins...more orange than black.

 

[eschaton]

Platys actually are, like most livebearers, fairly good algae-eating fish, though they won't clean off the glass.

If you want glass cleaning, I'd suggest a mystery snail, provided your PH stays above 6.5.

 

[Zeoth]

Harlequins are nice and there's also glowlight rasboras (hengel's rasbora) that are a little more colourful than the harlequins...more orange than black.

Hmm....I haven't seen those fish in my LFS for awhile now. I will be going this friday to get the decor and plants( Which have a ton of Hair algea on them so it'll be Oto's paradise [i hope]). My 10 gallon has been running for a year now so i'd say it's pretty well cycled. What about a flucation in the Ph (not major soemwhere from 7.0-6.7) Will the oto's die?

 

[Zeoth]

I just checked and I think I've got Hengal's Rasboras. When they are in a specific light and angle there is a goldish glow from them going from the base of the triangle to the tip of it's tail. (Don't ask for pics because I do not have the acess to a camera )