which one is the best algae eating fish?

[ThRoewer]

Nutrients are not the only issue. Nuisance algae will grow even with extremely low nitrates and phosphates. As long as there is nothing else growing that gives them competition eventually you will get hairy algae. You see that even on damaged reefs.
The best is to provide competition with either desirable algae (coralline works nicely) or corals (which is of course not really an option for a FOWLR tank)

 

[pyithar]

longspine urchins. they eat everything including coralline algae. but i'm not sure if they could defend themselves from trigger though.

 

[buraccha]

longspine urchins. they eat everything including coralline algae. but i'm not sure if they could defend themselves from trigger though.

i know that inverts are the best, but for trigger its meal time.

i got this HA growth suddently and my water param are fine
and its keep growing.

do you think that bristletooth tang can help?

 

[el aguila]

The best algae eating fish that I have ever owned is a Quoyi Parrotfish. Mine does eat hair algae. However it tends to keep the rock in the top 3/4 of the tank clean. He rarely goes and gets anything from the lower parts of the tank.

I'm assuming that if you have large triggers that you would have a large enough tank for a parrot.

 

[Bent]

i know that inverts are the best, but for trigger its meal time.

i got this HA growth suddently and my water param are fine
and its keep growing.

do you think that bristletooth tang can help?

The trigger won't go near a Hare.

 

[alex gonzales]

I had hair algae start to grow in my tank, added a magnificent foxface, and in no time, none left. Haven't had any since, and the fish is beautiful, but he is in a 400 gal.

 

[jason2459]

I loved my mag foxface. It too ate every kind of algae even a couple different kinds of bryopsis.

 

[Deinonych]

nutrients are not the only issue. Nuisance algae will grow even with extremely low nitrates and phosphates. As long as there is nothing else growing that gives them competition eventually you will get hairy algae. You see that even on damaged reefs.
The best is to provide competition with either desirable algae (coralline works nicely) or corals (which is of course not really an option for a fowlr tank)

+1

 

[Sir JRAD]

Snails and Hermits!

 

[ThRoewer]

One interesting observation I made:
After treating my QT with CP and a complete die-off of all algae in it, green hairy algae took over and are now all over the Real Reef rocks I have in that tank.
It seems they are doing best if all competition is gone.
With a FOWLR the only possible competition would be coralline. You can get it to grow with heavily dosing 2 part and massive water flow.
I just tried this method and it caused a coralline explosion in my reef tank. I hardly need to wipe my glass for green or brown algae but have to scrape off the new coralline dots at least once a week.

 

[jason2459]

Even in a FOWLR one can always harvest some algae in some way in a controlled fashion away from the display that could potentially out compete the algae in the display. I've also had great experiences with driving up bacteria population with carbon dosing to out compete algae in the display which this can be done in a FOWLR as well.