What is a good algae grazer?
 

System has been running for about 6 weeks with 200lbs of LR, no fish and no inverts. just a couple frags and some macro algae. A few rocks have developed some hair algae. Can anyone recommend a real efficent grazer that will consume hair algae?

So far people have recommended the following

Sea Hair
Turbo Snails
Lawnmower Blenny

Any Idea what would be best for a new system?

Thanks
Bryan

For a new system only 6 weeks old, you have to expect to go through some algae blooms. So you could try waiting it out. Physical removal can help too.

If you system has cycled, kicked in your skimmer and start 10-15% water changes per week.

A sea hare would clean it up, but then starve to death if you dont have sufficient algae growth in your tank later on. Not saying dont go with a sea hare, just after you tank is cleaned up try to find another reefer with the need for one.

Once you tank has cycled, definately put snails in to help with all kinds of algae. Check what types are available, different snails clean different areas such as rock, glass, or sand. And they eat different things as well.

LMB will help keep new growth limited, but probably won't do much against an existing big build-up of hair algae.

Thanks ReefGeek, I have been using a nylon brush on some of the rock, But Im concerned about the suff I cant reach near the base (30" deep) and I dont want to disturb my aquascaping by removing rocks to clean. The agae is starting to spread to other rocks with some hairs reaching almost 3" long. I thought about waiting it out but would also like to take a more proactive aproach.

If I go with the sea hair is there anything else I should be warned about besides it starving? I was concerned about it crawing into my pluming from my overflow.:eek:

Red Banded Trochus Snails. These are IMO, the best snail for a reef tank. They move fast and eat a lot. Plus they have the ability to reproduce in our tanks, I have 4 babies. (this is rare though)

Your overflow should be protected with plastic mesh on top to stop all your future creatures from getting in there.

Sea hares are supposed to be able to "ink" like a squid, and probably not the best creature to have in your tank if/when they die (they don't live more than 1 year I think) but I had one in my 50g to clean up my hair algae and when he passed on I didn't have any ill effects on the tank, so your much larger tank would not be in much peril I would say.

You dont have much for corals which is good because they can knock frags around pretty good.

If you have 3" hair algae, a sea hare is a good choice. You will definately need snails as well though, add 20-30 at a time, you dont want to add a ton at first and have them die off later due to lack of food, but you will probably need 100+ when you get your full reef action on!

Oh, and you might think they are ugly now, but they grow on you. So ugly they are cute! :)

Okay.. I've battled HA for a while since starting up... and IMO the best thing to use for it is a Sea Hare. Both that I have owned did an excellent job in removing it. The bad thing is : They are big, and they knock stuff over a lot .

I need to try snails though, as sea hares just aren't good for reefs because of their diet either

Also, LMB's really do not eat hair algae, at least IME. They'll take a bite at some of it every now and then, but they definitely won't get rid of it.

Go with the Sea Hare, and trade it or sell it out as soon as all the HA is gone ! JMO.

Scott

[quote=TheReefGeek]Your overflow should be protected with plastic mesh on top to stop all your future creatures from getting in there.
QUOTE]

I do have eggcrate at the top of my overflow but was thinking they might be able to either crawl over top or squeeze through it. Any comments?

Small snails, crabs, shrimp and fish will go through eggcrate. If you stick to larger stuff it'll be ok.

Gutter guard works good for tying to the eggcrate with zipties. (you can find this at your local hardware store) It's basically just a black mesh material.

If you have eggcrate that is good enough against a sea hare. If you run powerheads make sure there are covers on the intakes.

There is smaller mesh stuff than eggcrate that is better though

The inlet on the Tunze streams shouldnt be a problem I hope?... I beleive I have some gutter mesh - Black plastic diamond mesh stuff.. I think I will apply some to my overflow.

Those stream type powerheads can & will kill sea hares so make sure they're covered. Any powerheads can suck up an unsuspecting sea hare but the Tunze & Seios are so high powered, they're even more of threat.

the lawnmower blennie is a film algae eater, won't make any difference in the hair alage at all.

Steve

I actually have a 20gal with lots of hair algae growth. I put this growth into my FOWLR tank.My fox face rabbit fish and my blueface angel will clean a rock in about 2 hours. The rabbit loves all types of algae whereas the lawnmower in the same tank would prefer for me to feed it:biggrin: .

With your tank being so new and if you don't have many corals yet you might consider cutting back on your lighting period (if you haven't already). You didn't say whether your live rock was cured or not when you got it. A number of articles I've read suggest slowly raising your lighting period on new tanks from 4 to 10 hours over 6-8 weeks.

The rock I got was 'supposably' curred according to my vendor, however with the delay in shipment I did expect a considerable amount of die-off. The lighting cycle started a week after receiving the LR, followed by MH's a week after that with a short 3-4 hour photo period. After I started with aggressive water changes in the 3rd week I increased the photo period to about 7 hours. So basically for the last 3 weeks my MH's have been on a 7 hour schedule.