At last, I can see visible algae growth on the wall of my aquarium. Kinda worry before why I didn’t see any sign of algae yet in my aquarium. You might be wondering why on earth I want algae in my aquarium where everybody tries to avoid it?

Well. My new aquarium is still in cycling process. Algae signifies a good thing. It signifies that the water is rich with nitrates now. And what this implies? The nitrogen cycle developed already – where the ammonia has transform to the final form – nitrate. And this also means, the biological filtration are building up now.

Knowing that, I don’t want to keep those ugly looking algae any longer in my aquarium, especially those brown spot on the aquarium wall. Went to Pet Safari again to get the following fishes

  • Oto (Otocinclus affinis) – This is a good algae eater, that will eat those algae that I have on the aquarium wall

  • Yamato shrimp (Caridina japonica) – This is an eating machine, that will also feed on algae and left over food detritus

  • Butterfly Suckerfish / Chinese hillstream loach (Beaufortia kweichowensis) – Look nice sticking to the aquarium wall, and at the same time will also eat those algae

Below are my oto and my butterfly suckerfish feeding on the algae spot that I have.

Want to see them in action? And here are my aquarium cleaner casts in action.

Read the rest of the stories relating to this planted aquarium project:

  1. Getting things for pilot try of planted aquarium
  2. Setting up planted aquarium (phase 1)
  3. Setting up planted aquarium (stranded)
  4. Setting up planted aquarium (phase 2)
  5. Final goods shopping for this aquarium
  6. Experimenting with water temperature
  7. Installing CO2 system
  8. Fermentation started, CO2 bubbles start flowing in
  9. More CO2 bubbles
  10. Worrying about pH and excess CO2 over the night
  11. Getting aquarium cleaners
  12. Getting final fishes for the aquarium
  13. Plants trimming