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damn hair algea.... what likes to eat it?

R

REEFLECTIONS

i know a tangs like to eat it... anything a little more hardy, but also reef safe?
list of fish i have:
potters angel
eibli angel (i know.... but they coexist)
purple fire fish
yellow watchman
6 line wrasse
fp clown
perc clown
and the tank is 75 gallon...
 
C

calaxa

Hermit crabs (red dwarf). Maybe a foxface. My tangs do not eat it. My angels do not touch it. My hermits will eat it only when nothing else is around (and I just dumped 100 new ones in). Basically, if your tank is too well fed, that hair algae is probably going to stay.
 
C

calaxa

They say emerald mithraw crabs eat it as well. I put two in my tank and they burrowed somewhere and haven't seen them since.
 
R

REEFLECTIONS

i had put a few hermits in there, and they moved into way over sized shells, and kept knocking over my frags.... very troublesome. i suppose i will cut back on feeding and see if it helps, hopefully someone will think of something like likes all this yummy green algea...
 
Hawkeye

Hawkeye

all crabs are omnivorous. As dr. ron shimek likes to say - if you had the opportunity of eating seaweed or seafood buffet - which would you pick? the crab is picking the seafood buffet. ;)

your choices are:
reduce lighting/nutrients in the tank OR increase cleanup crew.

Reduced nutrients = less food or less phosphates in the water via changes.

Adding to the clean up crew - might be increasing the size of the refugium. you want the macro to uptake the nutrients before the hair algae. You could also add more snails so that they keep the lawn mowed before it grows to hair length. At shorter lengths your crabs/fish may pick at it as well.

Just my 2 cents. :)
 
C

calaxa

Hawk's comments are spot on. You have a buffett (as do I) so those scraps are being ignored. If you trim it a bit (the snails will eat it). Try better flow to area where the algae is growing. If you can isolate the rock it's growing on, you can remove it and give it a good scrub using a toothbrush.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
You can add a sea hare. They do a good job, but when it is gone you need to pass it along. More snails. I find when my snail population in my FOWLR diminishes the hair algae grows. Of course without the nutrients you won't have HA. What are your nitrates? You could try a few 20% water changes to help reduce them.
 
JRWOHLER

JRWOHLER

Some sea urchins will eat it. Some conchs will do a good job on it too. Of course best way is to starve it out of existence. Good combination of skimmer and refugium will do it. Funny little story I got frag with a little algae (not hair just algae) on it at the meeting well this morning the one frag had 5 snails on it because I have almost no algae in the tank...just some on the glass so it was like a buffet for them.

Does anyone feed their snails algae? I think I actually accidentally starved my urchin to death(don't know how long they live so maybe he just ran out of time).

Sea hares and lettuce slugs will also eat it supposedly.
 
C

calaxa

I'm betting his nitrates/phosphates are zero (speaking from own experience). The algae is probably gobbling it all up. It got so bad for me that the nuisance algae outcompeted my macro. This is what happens when you are away for a few months and have others "maintain" your tank for you.
 
R

REEFLECTIONS

trites and trates are 0, no phosphate test kit... but i'm sure they're there as i am having cyano issues also.... looks like it's time to add a fuge/sump....
 
MadReefer

MadReefer

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
Roy,
Take the 2 red hermits back you gave me. Seems like since you got rid of them the HA got worse. Also, I have a HOB filter you could probably add phosban to it and see what happens.
 
shipwrecked

shipwrecked

I second the sea hare,I got one awhile back,best hair algea remover ever,ugly as hec but does terrific,keep it away from filter intakes.. :-[
 
B

Birds Fan

A few emerald crabs did the job for me. I keep 4 in a 45g and haven't had a problem since. Also solve my bubble algea problem as well.
 
C

chessmanmark

Phyl said:
You can add a sea hare. They do a good job, but when it is gone you need to pass it along. More snails. I find when my snail population in my FOWLR diminishes the hair algae grows. Of course without the nutrients you won't have HA. What are your nitrates? You could try a few 20% water changes to help reduce them.
Click to expand...

This will work the quickest IMO. You can also try the large turbos. The will consume it but they will also bulldoze your corals. Identifying the source is really the issue though.
 
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