Thanks for the info on the frogs. I'll have to pick up some sinking frog pellets. I always fed my frogs a diet of both, but not when they had to compete with so many fish. I was afraid they wouldn't get to them in time, I guess I'll have to give it a try.
Diatoms are a type of algae. They definitely photosynthesize to make their food, and have cell walls. As mentioned these are made out of glass. Agree with Star R that they often just show up in new tanks. In all 3 of my tanks I had a bloom that wound down after a few months pretty much on its own. I added BN plecos to two tanks (rehomed fish from a friend) and they loved em. Made it so I didn't have to scrub every week anymore!
Yes, I got one BN from my LFS, and the brown algae is almost all gone. (don't worry, I feed algae wafers and zucchini too--I have a couple of snails to feed as well.) The tank is looking great. Within in day one, all the glass was sparkling clean, and over time, the decorations have been getting cleaner and cleaner....
I had included plans for a relatively small pleco in my overall tank plan, so getting a BN isn't going to be too much on my bioload. At the beginning of this post, I was no where near the max of my bioload. I have added quite a few more fish since, but haven't had any extra algae, probably because my BN is taking care of it. (regular water maintenance is also good).
