# otos



## jackh (Oct 9, 2007)

i got some algea in my tank...

the tank is a 20g thats fairly heavily planted. the white sand in the front portion of my tank has turned a slight yellow, idk if its algea or not. i have some green algea on the glass and some green spot algea (is the name right?) on some of my broadleaf plants. 

will an oto or two do some damage on it? btw i dose excel daily but ive been gone for the past week


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

Otto's are mainly brown algae eaters(diatoms). GSP is caused by low phosphates (P04) levels. The best way to get rid of it is to raise your P04 & C02 levels. _Is the green algae on the glass a dust coating or small green spots? _


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## jackh (Oct 9, 2007)

well i dont run co2, so should i just overdose excel a bit? 

the algea on the glass is more of a dust coating. i can wipe it off easily with my finger or with one swipe of my glass magnet thing


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## jackh (Oct 9, 2007)

edit, down near the sand in the front of the tank there is deff green algea on the glass though. i can never get the magnet thing that low bc of some rocks so it never gets cleaned. should i just scrub it off with a brush?

should i just scrub the leaves of my big leaved plants to remove the algea?

how do i raise the PO4 levels?

thanks


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

Green spot algae (GSA) is hard & does not scrape off easily, so removing it from the plant leaves is impossible. To increase phosphates (P04) use Seachem Phosphorus. Make sure to keep the P04 at 1ppm to ever 10ppm of nitrates (N03). 

You can spot treat algae using Excel, buy using a syringe and sprying it directly on the algae. Not sure how well this will work on GSA though.

Sounds like you have dust algae on the glass. Which I have found to be too much nitrates (N03). Usually decreasing the amounts of N03 being dosed will help within a two-three week period. I usually always get this algae when a tank is newly setup. 

I think you may have blue green algae (actually a bacteria) in between the glass & gravel. This is very common in that area where it's hard to clean. I usually remove it with the syphon by sticking it down in the substrate a bit while the side scrapes the glass. This removes the BGA from the glass & gravel at the same time.


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