Which bottom feeder

[Kayla]

I have a 10 us gallon tank with 4 lyretail guppies and 2 otocinclusis. I feed the guppies small amounts at a time but they dont eat it quick enough before it goes to the bottom so there’s a lot of waste and algae on the bottom of my tank. My ottos don’t seem to go to the bottom at all one likes to stay behind the filter and the other stays on the walls or the cords in the tank. What type of algae or bottom feeder should I get to fix this problem??

 

[seangee]

You need to feed your guppies less. Any food that is uneaten after 30 seconds is too much.

Guppies are very greedy fish. When I had guppies I always used to tap my finger on the surface just before feeding which made sure they came up and were ready by the time the food arrived.

 

[Kayla]

You need to feed your guppies less. Any food that is uneaten after 30 seconds is too much.

Guppies are very greedy fish. When I had guppies I always used to tap my finger on the surface just before feeding which made sure they came up and were ready by the time the food arrived.

It’s not that they don’t eat it it just goes to the bottom before they have a chance to get to it

 

[Byron]

It’s not that they don’t eat it it just goes to the bottom before they have a chance to get to it

It still seems you are feeding too much. One or two tiny flakes a day is sufficient nutrition for a guppy, so put less on the surface and make sure they do eat all of it before any gets to the substrate.

Otos will not eat flake food, they graze algae from surfaces. If this is insufficient, they need sinking algae-based pellet/disk food to graze. They should get this once a week anyway to ensure they are getting all their nutritional needs met.

A 10g is pretty small space for additional fish and bottom feeders. Snails might be your best option. The small pond snails, or Malaysian Livebearing Snails, are ideal at keeping tanks clean of uneaten food, and they eat all organics including the fish waste which helps.

 

[Kayla]

It still seems you are feeding too much. One or two tiny flakes a day is sufficient nutrition for a guppy, so put less on the surface and make sure they do eat all of it before any gets to the substrate.

Otos will not eat flake food, they graze algae from surfaces. If this is insufficient, they need sinking algae-based pellet/disk food to graze. They should get this once a week anyway to ensure they are getting all their nutritional needs met.

A 10g is pretty small space for additional fish and bottom feeders. Snails might be your best option. The small pond snails, or Malaysian Livebearing Snails, are ideal at keeping tanks clean of uneaten food, and they eat all organics including the fish waste which helps.

It still seems you are feeding too much. One or two tiny flakes a day is sufficient nutrition for a guppy, so put less on the surface and make sure they do eat all of it before any gets to the substrate.

Otos will not eat flake food, they graze algae from surfaces. If this is insufficient, they need sinking algae-based pellet/disk food to graze. They should get this once a week anyway to ensure they are getting all their nutritional needs met.

A 10g is pretty small space for additional fish and bottom feeders. Snails might be your best option. The small pond snails, or Malaysian Livebearing Snails, are ideal at keeping tanks clean of uneaten food, and they eat all organics including the fish waste which helps.

If I was to get snails how would I keep them from taking over my tank

 

[Essjay]

The simplest way to stop snails taking over is to be sure that you aren't over feeding the fish. If the food available to the snails is limited, they won't reproduce too much.

 

[Byron]

If I was to get snails how would I keep them from taking over my tank

In addition to fish food that essjay mentioned, snails are also eating all organic matter, including fish excrement. So they will reproduce to the level that deals with all this. When you see too many snails (whatever that actually means) it is only because they have plenty of organic food. The number of fish, their size, how much they are fed all contribute to these organics. Then there is your maintenance, regular substantial water changes to remove organics, keeping the filter well rinsed to prevent organics accumulating, and vacuuming the substrate at least in open areas to remove more of the organics.