PlanetCatfish.com

I've recently set up a new tank, for the first time with a sand base. After adding a the first few fish I got a good bloom of brown algae(diatoms). I got some ottos to clean that up and absolutly love them, I can't belive common plecos exist in the trade when this fish that never gets over 2 inches exists and is so much fun to watch. So now I'm trying to think of ways to farm diatoms for them. any good ideas? they are eating other foods, algea eater wafers, and I'm trying flash-frozen spinach recently.

If I add Phosphorus and Potassium will that help the algae out-compete the plants and grow like crazy again? Should I be worried about the amount of silicate in the water going down, maybe replace some of the sand at times?

My first test I'm gonna save the water I chage out and put it under a growlight with a good flat rock in there, hopefully that will get covered. Will this need a fish in it to keep the N levels up or areation? Can I just have that be the target of weely water changes and it'll stay good?

Lots of questions I know, but I couldn't find anything on promoting algae growth, only preventing it, and it doesn't seem like I can just reverse that advice and have it work

You might want to try farming algae.

Hey look at that, I guess I need to try somemore keywords in my searches I tink I'll do a sand base in my water container to keep the silicate levels up and add a little fertilizer see how it goes.

Thank you very much. I love this website, its gotten me back into my favorite hobby of aquariumkeeping.


Also is driftwood important for ottos, the internet seems a bit conflicted on this.