Lawnmower blennies and hair algae

[emilyolivia]

I'm confused. I thought lawnmower blennies loved hair algae, but "Elwood" is barely looking at it. (Came with the LR with the new tank). It sounds like I need to borrow a small sea hare (28g biocube) size. Some nice polyps are on the LR and starting to smother it so can't scrub. I've cut back on food, did a water change, etc. Emily

 

[Wicked Color]

Lawnmowers, most blennies, and many other grazing fish are diatom grazers, meaning the thin brown layer on the glass and rocks, which also grows on the newest growth of hair algae, if you pinch it short he will graze on it much more, and may eventually eliminate many types of short growing algae in the pursuit of the diatoms.

 

[dv3]

emerald crabs could help

 

[303travism]

Yellow tanga are great for cleaning that up

 

[303travism]

*tangs

 

[Wicked Color]

Many tangs, (I believe yellow included) are also diatom grazers, who also vicariously eat filamentous type algae

 

[spstimie]

For a cube, I would not recommend a tang. Try a hectors or rainford goby. Are you running GFO, carbon, skimmer? As many parameter details as possible.

 

[emilyolivia]

I don't know what a GFO is, but skimmer and carbon. What's a hector? I'm dosing for calcium which is gosh, lowish, but not terrible. PH was a tad low, 8.2ish, but most always is right on. Salinity and the other parameters are in balance although I've never checked for mag. This rock, corals came from a used tank I got at Easter and had a small amount of hair algae. When I started feeding the livestock in the new tank apastia and the hair algae went off the charts so must have been there on the LR. Yes tank is too small for a tang. My impression of emerald crabs is they are aggressive to other tank mates. True? What's the problem with sea hares??

 

[Wicked Color]

Sea hares consume the algae and die from starvation quickly.

 

[spstimie]

GFO is granular ferric oxide. It is a media for removing phosphate. I have not had any issues with emerald crabs. Sea hares are tough to maintain for long periods of time.