Otto's

[Betta_man]

I woke this morning to find what appeared to be aglea on the surface of the water, does this happen? I think there is also algea on the side of the tank, Can i get a few ottos in my 3gal? it also has my betta in it. I was thinking about 2-3 ottos and maybe a few shrimp.

Is that ok?

 

[houndour]

what do you mean on the surface? Is it hair algae?

For the glass I use a scraper to get it off.

I looked into Otos. In PFK this month they have an article on algae eaters. you can get dwarf otos (dwarf suckermouth/dwarf oto/golden oto/zebra oto) and apparently they grow between 4-5cm. But it says to keep in groups of at least 5.

I dont know how many fish you could keep in a 3 gallon.

Is your tank in direct sunlight? This can encourage algae growth.

 

[Betta_man]

The algae is on the water surface.

It isnt in direct sunlight but gets a bit of sun...

 

[houndour]

Well I'm not convinced otos would be suitable. You might be better off asking about otos in the appropriate forum. If you really wanted something to eat the algae then maybe the shrimp is the way to go. I've heard of people keeping shrimp with Bettas.

 

[eudielynn]

My betta ate the three ghost shrimp I had in his tank. I went to a snail and he leaves it alone.

 

[veen]

i had 1 oto each in with 2 of my bettas in both a 2.5 & a 3 and the otos produced so much waste that my normally 0 ppm amonia readings went up to 5!!! i would stay away from otos in such small tanks. although they do a great job of cleaning algae off everything they produce way more waste than the bettas do.

i don't know about shrimp-have never kept them-but perhaps there's some sort of organic control you can try? anyone know of any such thing?

i've never had that kind of algae so can't comment on cleaning it, i've only had the normal brownish kind that gets onto tank walls, silk plants, etc. a good tank brush cleans that off or a mini tank magnet.

 

[rdd1952]

Otos need nearly perfect water as they are very delicate. In the 3+ months I have had my first tank set up, I have only lost 3 fish and they were all otos. I just had another one die 2 days ago. They aren't the greatest algae eaters either. They will clean the surface of leaves but anything on the edges, they leave alone. They absolutely will not touch blue green algae. I still have 3 and hopefully they will live a long time but I probably won't get any more. I would try amano shrimp. They are supposed to be great algae eaters and create almost no bio load so you could put 2 or 3 in with the betta and not have a problem. You mentioned ghost shrimp. They are just scavengers and will not eat algae except as possibly a last resort.