Lawnmower Blenny questions

[RalphTheOscar]

Do Lawnmower Blennys eat or nip at corals? I have green star polyps, green palys, zoanthids, blue mushroom, frogspawn and hammer.

Ive heard Lawnmower Blennys are good at eating green hair algae, do they eat other kinds of algae? Would they eat Feather Caulerpa?

I was looking to take this fish on for a friend, he says the Lawnmower blenny eats algae and pellets as well. I just dont want to starve him is all. I dont have much green hair algae(my mexican turbo snail keeps it in check)

 

[alf1096]

Never had any problems with lmb. Mine eats everything pellet flake ect.

 

[mudcat1]

I bought a lawnmower blenny just over one year ago to help address an algae problem in my tank. He could not keep up with the growth so I also added a Vlamingii tang and they both did a great job at keeping the algae at bay. I started running GFO in a reactor to try to eliminate the phosphates from my system. When the algae growth started to slow down I noticed the tang would eat other foods as offered (ex. mysis, flake or pellets), but the lawnmower bleeny showed no interest in anything other than algae, either algae that grows on rocks or film algae that grows on the glass. I even attempted to use the dry forms of red algae and nori, but he showed no interest. Eventually he starved to death, it did not take very long either (a few days, to a week at most). If I ever get another lawnmower blenny, I will accept that I will have to live with some algae growth in my tank.

 

[kmbyrnes]

My LMB eats anything and everything offered to the tank, in addition to keeping algae at bay.
He also adds character with his nightly patrolling along the front of the tank, back and forth checking on the world outside. Hilarious.

 

[saltyair]

They are great fish but I had the same experience as mudcat. If they are eating nori and pellets you have nothing to worry about.
I now have a star blenny that prefers pellets and mysis to algae lol




UOTE=mudcat1;23288139]I bought a lawnmower blenny just over one year ago to help address an algae problem in my tank. He could not keep up with the growth so I also added a Vlamingii tang and they both did a great job at keeping the algae at bay. I started running GFO in a reactor to try to eliminate the phosphates from my system. When the algae growth started to slow down I noticed the tang would eat other foods as offered (ex. mysis, flake or pellets), but the lawnmower bleeny showed no interest in anything other than algae, either algae that grows on rocks or film algae that grows on the glass. I even attempted to use the dry forms of red algae and nori, but he showed no interest. Eventually he starved to death, it did not take very long either (a few days, to a week at most). If I ever get another lawnmower blenny, I will accept that I will have to live with some algae growth in my tank.[/QUOTE]

 

[RalphTheOscar]

Thanks for the posts/advice. Im hoping because this LMB already eats pellets that he wont starve(friend is giving me all his food too so whatever he eats now I will have to offer him)

Prolly a dumb question but LMB doesnt eat cyano(red slime algae) right? Do you think a LMB might help because they stir the sand up when they move around? Im having a small outbreak on the sand and it started to creep up on one of my rocks. I siphoned out what I could and moved some sand around so it would stay away from my rock, also used a toothbrush to scrub the bottom of the rock where it was.

 

[jinks]

I read an article a while ago on them and their feeding. It said that while they do eat algae a good amount of what they found in their stomachs was the zooplankton that lives in the algae. If it eats prepared food then you should be okay. If not you will need to make sure you not only have enough algae but enough live zooplankton living in it to keep him alive. Much like a mandarin needs. Wish i could think of what magazine the article was in.

I do not think it will help with the red slime at all. Manually remove what you can. Keep up on water changes and maintenance. Just stay the course and don't resource to buying an animal for a quick fix.

 

[shesacharmer]

Mine is a positive glutton. He eats everything in sight. Except Cyano...darn it. His belly is so fat and round...nori, pellets, flakes, black worms...everything. He is also the most aggressive fish in my tank. He left marks on the sides of both my Kole Tang and One Spot Foxface even though they never bothered one another in QT...once in the DT they were fighting over territory. It settled down after about a week and there is no more aggression.