# Otocinclus solved my brown algae/diatom problem overnight



## Jeremy93ls (Feb 20, 2009)

Greetings all. This place is GREAT. I've learned a great deal and saved a ton of money reading the threads here on APC. 

I've got a simple 10G planted tank with Aquarium_dot_com substrate, driftwood, Rena XP1, Rena Smart heater and about 30 watts of swirly compact florescent light. No C02 but i use Flourish and Excel.

12 Neon Tetras and an Apple Snail have done well for a few months until I began getting brown algae/diatoms all over the glass and Amazon Swords. I was scraping the glass every few days and my Swords were looking bad. I searched for remedies here and settled on adding a few Otocinclus to see what would happen.

2 tiny Otos removed 90% of that nasty orange/brown stuff within 24 hours. I got home yesterday and couldn't believe my eyes. Your mileage may vary but I'm sold on these little critters. 

Will I need to supplement their diet after the diatoms are gone?


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## Anafranil (Mar 15, 2005)

Diatoms are the least problematic algae,they go away with almost all algae eating fish.You should consider adding some more ottos as they feel more comfortable in a school,and feed them a couple of algae wafers a day or any other tablet food suitible for herbivorous fish.


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