What eat hair algae?!

[katekate087]

I'm having a hair algae problem in my tank recently and it's driving me crazy. It mostly grows in the back of the tank under my LEDS and it's really difficult to get back there myself and turkey baster it out. So what will eat it and not destroy my peaceful little reef. I've read emerald crabs are the best "reef safe" crabs but to be on the safe side, I would prefer none. I have a pair of peppermint shrimp, a pair of sexy shrimp (that hate each other and live on separate sides of the tank) and random fish. As for corals I tend to stick with torches, frogspawn, and blastos. I have other random coral that I assume are hardy because they've spread like wildfire. Thanks for the help
60gl cube phos forever at a .09

 

[Naterade86]

Sea hare... They eat the hell out if it and they are virtually cheap. You could get some blue leg hermits.. I also know that tang and foxface will graze.. Honestly the best way is to reduce your nitrates at the same time as adding one or all if the above

 

[Naterade86]

I yeah also turbo snails

 

[snorvich]

Sea hare... They eat the hell out if it and they are virtually cheap. You could get some blue leg hermits.. I also know that tang and foxface will graze.. Honestly the best way is to reduce your nitrates at the same time as adding one or all if the above

Two pieces of good advice. Sea Hares are pretty cool too but best is to not have the problem in the first place.

 

[Calappidae]

Two pieces of good advice. Sea Hares are pretty cool too but best is to not have the problem in the first place.

+1

Sea hares also are easy to starve IME if they finish the job.. then the algae will just grow back afterwards.. same goes for anything else.

Figure out the cause of the algae before mowing it down.. using tap water, over feeding, etc are biggies to algae growth.

 

[Naterade86]

yeah true that.. it's just going to keep coming back unless you solve the problem. what I did for my C hair is I bought a 10 gallon tank. got it all setup and I feed him nori. I'm keeping him just in case.. yeah I had a serious problem with GHA a little over a month ago .I started using RO/DO water and I am very diligent about monitoring my parameters. post a few pictures of the algae..

 

[Naterade86]

Sorry RO/DI...lol

 

[Betta132]

A hector's goby will nibble on the hair algae. Solving the root cause is a good plan, though.

 

[katekate087]

I keep my parameters as good as I can :/ I need to change the water more often thAn once a week I guess till it stops growing.
I have a bunch of blue legs. My tang picks at some of the algae and I can't keep turbo snails because they die so quickly. There's a bacteria on my rocks that I've read is what's killing them. I have a lot of live stock. So my waters get dirty really quickly I guess. The problem isn't bad enough for a sea hare I don't think. I wouldn't want it to starve. It would probably eat everything in like 2 days.

 

[fragbox]

sea hare all the way. one stop solution !

 

[Yani1133]

Try alcohol dosing, i had great luck with that. As for fish my hectors goby ate it and was a cool little fish. They tiny so wont clear a 100 gallon tank, but plug away for their size

 

[katekate087]

Will a hectors goby get along with my Randell goby and mandarin goby?

 

[katekate087]

Also I'm reading that sea hare can be difficult to keep and turn toxic if startled by fish? I'm not sure I can handle an 'expert level' nor would I want to.

 

[Naterade86]

Well I have heard that too but I'll tell ya my urchin poked him the one time. He just feel to the bottom of the tank say there for a minutes and kept on eating.. He's out of my display tank now I keep him in a 10 gallon. I feed him nori and algae pellets...

 

[Naterade86]

I adviser against alcohol dosing unless you use the right stuff..it works well yes but if you Mrs up even slightly it won't be good

 

[Calappidae]

Also I'm reading that sea hare can be difficult to keep and turn toxic if startled by fish? I'm not sure I can handle an 'expert level' nor would I want to.

They'll release a purple dye. My lfs keeps them in stock for over 25 years.. and they claim only ONE TIME it has happened in the shipping bag.

Carbon will take it out ASAP anyway. I had a 4" sea hare starve in my 125 gallon and I never even found the corpse.

 

[faithenfire]

They'll release a purple dye. My lfs keeps them in stock for over 25 years.. and they claim only ONE TIME it has happened in the shipping bag.

Carbon will take it out ASAP anyway. I had a 4" sea hare starve in my 125 gallon and I never even found the corpse.

i've had two die in my tank and it didn't nuke it. that being said i would have carbon ready just in case.

i prefer trochus snails to turbos, they last longer and can flip themselves over and they eat cyano too.

lawnmower blennies will eat algae too

 

[Mael]

my turbos eat the hair algae on the glass and pumps, the emerald crab does a decent job on the stuff on the rockwork that the snails miss. My turbos just **** me off since they run into frags and dislodge them. Defintely would go with trochus next time.

 

[faithenfire]

emeralds can be good, but eventually i had one that decided to "clean" my kenya tree by dragging his claws along a branch, and he would also grab a branch and hide behind it which looked absolutly silly.

now a kenya tree can handle it but i would be very upset if it were an expensive coral

 

[EllisJuan]

I have a Sea Hare that I got about a week ago to help clear out some GHA I had. He is doing awesome work and is pretty awesome to watch.