algae eating fish?

No fish, snail, shrimp or anything else you put in a tank is going to be 100% effective at this. Plus they'll add wastes to the tank, and high nutrient levels from their wastes will just contribute to the nutrients that "fertilize" your algae.

The three best controls for algae are lighting, nutrient control, and physical removal. Obviously, with live plants, you won't be able to just turn off the tank lights for too long of a period of time without them showing some effects as well, although a day or two won't cause them any permanent harm.

For nutrient control, be sure you're doing adequate water changes (at least 25% per week). If you're using a plant fertilizer, hold off on adding it to your tank for a while - the algae uses it as well, especially if it's in a liquid form. If you have plants rooted in the gravel, you can switch to a pellet fertilizer that you place at the plant's roots where it can still get at the nutrients. but the algae is more limited. If you test your aquarium water, try to keep your nitrates below 20ppm. Nitrate is a plant fertilizer, and it can be found in public water supplies, so you might want to check the level in your tapwater too. If that's also high, you might want to dilute your tapwater with reverse osmosis water for a while to lessen what's available. Phosphate is another plant fertilizer that can be found in public water supplies, and you can get a phosphate-absorbing pad to put in your filter to remove this.

Physical removal would be through the use of fish - if your tankmates allow, a school of 3-4 otocinclus catfish (otos, 1.2 inches each) or a smaller pleco (rubbernose, bristlenose, 5 inches) would be good choices. But the best remover is you and an algae scraper, followed by a siphon to remove as much of what you scaped off as possible.

NOTE: Chinese algae eaters only eat algae as juveniles, and grow into 10 inch territorial fish that perfer to eat the slime coat off their tankmates, leaving them open to infection, stress, and death. Best to avoid these! - http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/profiles/638.htm

Think this through. If a fish ate all the algae in the tank,what would become of it? It will only wind up growing more algae. The way to eliminate algae is not to add more fish to increase the amount of waste in the tank,it is to remove the nutrients before it becomes algae. The answer to your problem is not more fish,it's cleaner water. If, since you have a densely planted tank (all those plants removing nutrients from the system) the plants are not out-competing the algae for food,then you must have a very nutrient-rich environment. Begin doing very frequent small water changes until the nutrient levels decrease. This will be obvious when the Nitrate level get down to around 20ppm.

If you want small algae eaters you can fit about 5 ottos in there, stay around 1-1.5 inches.

You can also stick 2 bristlenoses grows about 3-4 inches in there instead of the ottos. And the plecos might uproot your plants, rather than an otto.

I myself love ottos, so it is your choice.

Clown Loaches or Chinese algae eaters. Both remain relatively smaller than the pleco's (aka sucker catfish). And don't destroy a planted tank. Pleco's will uproot your plants by their fast swimming

FYI. All sorts of algae eating fish eventually stop eating algae after a certain age/size. Algea to them is a food source that's good enough for the first year or so of their lives, after which they move to normal fish food and sometimes stalk smaller fish (case in point, plecos)

IMO the best thing to do to keep algae under control is take cotton balls and wipe the inside of your tank once a week. the cotton will remove the algae and not harm the glass of the tank. Its a monotonous process but think of it like maintenance of your tank.

good luck

The beta shouldn't bother any fish other than another male beta. That's why they were called "Siamese Fighting Fish" back in the day. Don't worry, Sucker will be safe!

my mollies love eating algae, so they are another option

there is a fish called chinese algea eater and they are really small and dont grow and eat algea really fast and vary cheap.. also you could get snails they are the same but die more often. which every you get get one per gallon so i would get 11 chinese algea eaters.

rubber lipped pleco's are my favorite, they stay under 5in and they are very cute

Pleco...just rehome them if they get too big, there are types that don't get so large.

Mystery snails.

Catfish.

Algae eating shrimp.

ask for plekos :D they get 2 be like.... 20 inchs and they are really cool :D they have poka dots on them :D

http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/sesta/pleko1.JPG