Best Fish For Algae Control
 

What's the best fish for controlling algae besides the Lawnmower Blenny? I already have one of them and he seems to be slacking off on the job.

Tangs and foxfaces are good. What kind of algae is it?

Hair algae. I know tangs are good for that but I'm still in the process of stocking the tank. A tang was going to be probably the last fish to go in.

Depending on the algae, whether it's hair algae or bryopsis... Another fish might help or the extra nutrients might be like putting a fire out with gasoline.

You're much better off to spend the effort to get the nutrients under control.

I had both a tang and a foxface in my big tank and neither of them did much except poop, eat nori and pellets+ the algae that I liked... both of them left the stuff I wanted eradicated alone.

Using a turkey baster with boiling water to nuke the algae and work on water quality and you'll be laughing!

Wise decision they are big bullys once they mature, I just pluck it with my fingers if it gets out of control. How did the algae come to be ??

I know my tap water is high in phosphates, I'm guessing maybe my RO/DI filters might need replacement. This tank was started 6 months ago, is fully cycled and the Lawnmower is my only fish.

Do you have a TDS meter? Those are invaluable when deciding when to change filters and DI resin.

How bad a hair algae problem are we talking about anyways?

What is the size of your tank?

Rarely do tangs ever do a good job in hair algae control

You need to first get your water conditions so that they are acceptable.
Once you have done that go online and see if you can borrow a sea hare from another reefer. If not buy one but return it to the lfs when it has done its job otherwise you will starve it.

Remember to acclimatize the sea hare very slowly as they will not survive a quick introduction.

Upon doing some research, it looks like diatoms (golden/brown algae). I had some after my tank cycled and the blenny ate most of it. I have been manually removing some of it so it's not an all-out plague. I'll upload some pics when I get home tonight.