lettuce nudi, other algae eaters

[snowpunk]

anyone have any experience with them. I have stopped the overwhelming growth of the hair algae, now I need to get a crew together to knock it out FOR EVER!!!!!

 

Things I was thinking were sea hair, nudi, and maybe some emeralds, and a sally or 2. Any ideas or actual experience with hair algae eaters would be great.

 

oh, and they all have to be reef safe too;)

[chorse]

Red leg hermits will be in tomorrow. I'll give you a deal on them so you can get a bunch. They should do the trick. -Isaac

[snowpunk]

I have one right now, I see him chowing on it now that you mention it. I am running low in general on hermits so I'll take a bunch

[RoseCityAquarium]

we have sea hares in. they definately do the trick

[pledosophy]

IME Nudi's get sucked into powerheads and intakes fairly quickly. If oyu don't have these, then your good. Emerald crabs will eat the algae then move on to the coral, my sally never paid much attention to the stuff that I noticed.

 

HTH

[dsoz]

I tried sea hares twice. Both times they lasted less than a day before dying and never did eat any algae. I drip acclimated them for over an hour each time. :(

 

I was given a lettuce nudibranch from when H2Ocooled was taking down his tank. I saw it about two days later, and have not seen it since. I have no idea where it ended up, but it was probably in a powerhead or in the overflow. :(

 

I am also kicking my hair algae habit. I think the thing that did the best for me was a tang. I did have a yellow tang and a fox-faced rabbitfish that would keep the algae down to about the consistency of moss, but they both died when I had a bacterial bloom. Now I have a powder brown tang, and he grazes the rocks all day long (along with eating any chaeto I have in the display, and stealing food from the corals when I feed them krill and silversides).

 

I had 3 emerald crabs, they didn't do much for the hair algae (lost them to the same bacterial bloom that got the fish), and now have a sally-lightfoot that is constantly picking at the rocks (not sure what exactly it is eating).

 

A couple of SMALL turbo snails also made quick time through the hair algae. It is a love/hate relationship because they also mow through the frags, and knock them off the rocks. They are starting to get larger, I may have to trade them in for smaller ones.

 

I had two tiger cowrie snails (look like big pooka shell necklace) One of them was caught EATING MY NEW ACAN FRAGS!!!!! (flame)(flame) I was so mad that I was about to turn it into a necklace right away. Both of them went back to the LFS. The happy ending to that story is that the polyps that it was eating looked like bare skeleton, but they are starting to grow flesh from in between the ribs, but it is not as colorful yet.

 

Good luck. But don't just get one type of creature to battle the HA! Use several that will attack it from multiple angles.

 

dsoz

[Smann]

What type of hair algae are we talking about, tiny hairs on the rock? or dark green 2-3" "taking over" the tank, ripping put by the handfull, had to tear down the tank and move it algae, I can offer advice on the latter. normal reef algae growth can be handled by a few hermits, some urchins,tangs to keep the rock clean anything beyond that is a maintenace or nutrient problem. Snails only eat diatoms and to many in a tank will slowly die until a balance of available food is reached, I keep 9 atrea snails in my 180gal.

[snowpunk]

Well I had the thick, long stuff but it is all but gone now. I have the hair still but it is just light all over the tank. I think I only have 2 hermits left. one red and one black and white(huge). I think the B&W one was a bit carnivorous, cause I had more and I saw him pulling one out of a shell. My turbos don't do a lot but, I only have a few. I have 4 urchins right now, one eats a fair amount, one other just a little and the other two won't have it. In other news, I have not seen my tomini or my potters since my water change a few days ago. I'm fearing the worst. Both were doing great and the potters has been with me for 7 months I think. I am gonna just get the hermits for now and hope for the best. I think I'll pass on the nudi.

[Smann]

What have you done as far a changes to your tank since the outbreak, the main things would be lighting, good water flow and maintenance, keeping filters clean and reducing nutrients thru regular water changes. keep in mind that snails, hermits, fish will only eat whats natural food for them, green hair algae is not one of them at least not the kind that grows in dead water areas in a reef tank. I still had that algea on top of powerheads, and in a dead area without waterflow, I recently added a refugium (for other reasons) with macro algae and most of it is gone the powerheads are clean. I have a few hermits, they are fun to watch but I would look at your tank and equip as the source and the solution to any algea problems

[snowpunk]

I don't have it in low flow areas per-say. I had it controlled with an additive but just switched to a phos reactor. Now it is just a matter of getting the old out. I have a lighted sump with some greenery to counteract the growth in the tank. It all seems to be working now. Mostly just cleanup at this point. I did upgrade my lighting to 400W from 175W halides. I had it long before this change though so not a factor as to why it grew. I removed a few bigger rocks to let better flow through the tank and make some better spots for coral too:). I think part of it was that I had an eel that created a lot of waste, and a giant serpentine star that ate almost any invert he could get to. Both have now been moved and the tank has been getting better since.

[snowpunk]

I tried sea hares twice. Both times they lasted less than a day before dying and never did eat any algae. I drip acclimated them for over an hour each time. :(

 

 

I actually had 2 also, mine where great until my starfish got an expensive couple of meals. They did fine though. May still go that route again but I don't know.