Oto cats are incredible little algae destroyers- but you need to do done research on them- they are a newer aquarium species and more is being figured out about certain different variations of the oto... If you are going to go with otos in a 10g low plant tank I would go for a school of 5 otocincles batmani- they are browner in color and have what looks like a Batman sign on its tail. I've noticed these guys stay around a half inch to an inch, are mostly nocturnal schoolers and prefer algae from the glass and other smooth surfaces such as round rocks/ornaments filter surfaces and fake plants. Stay away from leopard, zebra or 'unknown', the first 2 get to be up to 4 inches, and if they don't know what kind of otos their vendor has and/or can't give you a description of what time they eat, what surfaces they prefer to eat off and how big they get. A lot of people find otos difficult to keep because different types of otos need different surfaces (some will only eat tannins from drift wood, others will only eat from live plants) and different types of food (some eat only specific forms of algae, some will only eat dead plant matter). A lot of these one by one die offs come from these being a newer mostly wild caught aquarium species and the assumption that they are all algae eaters, when only a few are truly algae eaters, others need actual veggies or live plants... As with other newer aquarium species research is spotty... Snails are a more simple form invert algae control as long as your tank is mature... Half the fun is research... I keep telling myself that lol.
