"Mudbunny" wrote in message
om...
I am back again looking for some advice.

My current setup is in a 10g tank. I have a couple of plastic plants,
2 Orange Platys, 3 bloodfin tetras, and another fish that looks sorta
like a bloodfin tetra, but has scales that are more white than the
bloodfins. (When we bought it, it accidentally got caught up in the
net with the 3 bloodfins, and the seller didn't want to take it out
and try to catch them again). I live in Hull, quebec, so my water is,
from my understanding, pretty soft.

I am currently getting a fair amount of algae on the windows of my
tank that I am removing with a scrubber. Then it hit me that this
would be a good time to add something that eats algae. (All towards a
goal of me having to do as little as possible grin). In my current
set-up, is there anything I could add that would do a pretty good job
at eating the algae.

Otocinclus and, ramshorn or nerita snails are some options. I usually
still clean the front glass, and the algae crew is for elsewhere.

1. How difficult would it be to add a plant to the current set-up?? I
only have gravel on the bottom, so would it involve a great deal of
work to add a plant? Would this even do anything to the algae??

Adding a plant is easy. Keeping it growing will usually depend on the
type and amount of light you have. If you have fluorescent light, then
experiment with a few inexpensive plants which you find attractive.

2. How about a snail or a fish? We had a snail for a couple weeks, but
it stopped moving for a couple of weeks, and then started floating, so
it got buried at sea.

I read something about some snails having a dormant period which can last
weeks. Yours might wake up in a land fill ;~) Until the shell is empty
or they smell bad, if they are not moving, I can't tell a live snail from
a dead snail. Hull's water is a bit soft for snails, so you might add
something to leech calcium back in to harden it a bit.

NetMax

Marcel