Green Algae Jungle

Definitely get the otos I had a bit of an algae problem in my last tank and got six otos. Two days later and there was not a spec anywhere! Personally I would clean the glass to get it looking good again right away, but I'm sure that eventually the otos would take care of it Just make sure that you've got a plan for when they get through all the algae lol I used to just keep some algae wafers, but you can also grow algae on rocks

The long stringy alga - I just wound that round my finger and pulled till it came out. Strangely relaxing.
The blue green stuff is cyanobacter, it peels off but comes back.
The green stuff on the glass - nerites will eat that one!

Here is a link to identify the various algae and their causes. And cures. Though it mainly refers to planted tanks.

I really like my snails. I put them in my tank when I got them, expecting them to be quite slow and uninteresting, but they started moving straight away and they're quite active. They move quite quickly ( for snails) and they really do keep the tank sparkling

I should warn everyone that nerites only eat certain types of algae. The best approach is to find out why you've got algae and remedy the cause.

They'll have plenty of choice.... so I'll adopt the wait'n'see aproach.

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. Snails are a sensitive subject in our house as they keep eating our courgettes in the garden.  I know they have nothing to do with the aquarium types but my other half gets cross at the mention of a snail. 

So I went to my local MA this morning and got 6 Amano shrimps, as we were planning to get them for a long time anyway. They got to work on the algae straight away so it looks like I’ve got the tasty variety! I'll see how they get on in a few days. I hope my chain loaches don’t eat them and that they don’t escape. I'll post some pictures ‘after’, hopefully there will be something to show.

The cyanobacter grows at a corner where a light from the window catches the tank. The shop assistant from MA said that the combination of outside light and not doing the water change for two weeks contributed to this particular problem. I'll read up on it the algae on the page you've given, Sue. I'll also see if I can shade this corner more effectively, I can't really move the tank anywhere else.

The tank didn't have much green algae until I used Nitratex, so that might have caused some imbalance. A biggish water change is due after the holiday, so I'll do that. Nitrates are about 50 in my tap water, so I’m reluctant to do too big a change, as I will put them back in. I’ve got some biohome ultimate filter media in the filter, which has been there for a couple of months, so I hope the anaerobic bacteria will establish themselves there in a while and get on with processing nitrates. Not sure what else I could do?

Re the loaches and amanos, I have both with no problems. Provided the shrimps have somewhere to hide when they moult; they are very vulnerable while the new skin hardens.

Thanks Sue. My bogwood has quite a few hiding spots and this is where I suspect the Amanos are hiding at the moment. Up to three show up from time to time and proceed with algae consumption, they seem to favour the purple furry type.