water readings

Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining as my water readings on my ammonia and nitrite have been a consistent 0 every reading, and my nitrate readings are always between 5 & 10, The reason I am writing this is I would like to have around 5 otos in my tank, and they require alage to feed on, and with my nitrate readings always around 5-10, how am I going to get some alage to grow. I am under the impression that in order to have algae growing the reading has to be up around 20 or a little higher. Am I missing something somewere or not. Like I said I am not complaining as I think that I have a very clean tank. I have 7 zebra danios in the tank and I feed them 2 times a day, once with flakes and the other feeding is with freeze dried bloodworms. What they don't eat I try to scoop the left over food out of the tank with a net, but some still floats to the bottom. I have had the danois in the tank for better than a week, I have done 3 water changes, but I have yet to vaccume the substrate, and my water is clear. Can I still put in the otos even though I don't have any algae growing or just wait. The next batch of fish I am going to put in are some panda corys(6), and I will be putting them in by the middle of February. To me it looks like everything is going ok with the exception of the algae growing, what do you all think?

You absolutely don't want ammonia or nitrite in your aquarium. Both are reactive nitrogen compounds, and vegetation needs nitrogen to grow. Beneficial bacteria convert harmful nitrogen compounds into plant food, and some plants like water sprite and hornwort will directly metabolise ammonia. Algae spores are in the air, and all they need to grow is water and light. Plenty of foods are available for herbivores to easily supplement aquarium algae. The sinking algae wafers are popular, and they look much better than algae growing over the glass and decorations. The idea is to control algae growth by keeping a balance between plant food and plant load.

Probably the biggest source of ammonia in an aquarium is over feeding. Since you seem to have a well balanced aquarium, weekly, partial water changes should be fine. A syphon hose with a large diameter uptake tube will suck up uneaten food, etc., without removing gravel. I hope some of this rambling helps. Please keep us posted, and ask all the questions you want.