Best GHA Eating Fish

[40g Nano]

What is the best algae eating fish?
Foxface or some type of tang? Also, is a scopas or sailfin good algae eaters? What about a kole tang or tomini?
Thanks!

 

[40g Nano]

Im not too worried about tank size as i will get them small then give them to my friend who has a 180

 

[40g Nano]

The tank is a 40 gallon

 

[jda]

No. If you get one, it is almost like a unicorn. An army of urchins, ceriths and turbos work better - not one or two, but a bunch since they all want to eat the easy algae first. Sea hare and lettuce sea slug work well too, but are not always long lived. You will have to give away most of the urchins and snails once they do their jobs.

I am talking like 8 pincushions, 150 certiths and 100 astreas.

 

[40g Nano]

Im sorry but that is well over $200

What do you mean almost like a unicorn?

 

[40g Nano]

Actually, 100 ceriths is $200, astreas are another $200, and the urchins are let's say $70

 

[ZoWhat]

Dosing tetraselmis phytoplankton is the expert answer IMO.

Tetraselmis phyto is a BENEFICIAL algae that outcompetes nuisance algae like GHA. The phyto gobbles up NO3/PO4 before any nuisance algae can, and the nuisance algae starves itself out. It takes about a good 4 weeks to see a major difference.

But! Its a permanent and longtern solution to any nuisance algae problem.

Here's a detailed post I posted explaining the process:

Algae-control over Algae-elimination

Expert level stuff here, but I want to share my own experience. Everyone has their own husbandry and is entitled their their own-way-of-doing-things. I have for awhile now been dosing 32ozs of tetraselmis phytoplankton algae that I brew on my basement in two big 5gal containers with spouts...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[40g Nano]

Im already dosing phyto, and have a small fuge

 

[40g Nano]

The one i dose is the algaebarn 4 species mix

 

[jda]

Fish are not good hair algae eaters. Every once in a while, one will eat it, but it is rare - unicorn.

Did you start with dead/dry rock? If so, nobody wants to hear this since nobody told them yet, but this is the cost of not using live rock. If not a clean up crew, then it is something else.

 

[40g Nano]

On live rock, half of my tank, there is no hair algae, on the half of 9 month dry rock, there is algae

 

[ZoWhat]

........

 

[40g Nano]

technically, all of the rock is LR, but the one half of the tank that started as dry rock has algae on it, and it has had it for a while now. LR is fine, but i want to eliminate the other half with algae on it

 

[40g Nano]

Half my tank started as Lr, no algae on it

The other half started as dry rock around 9-10 months ago
It has algae on it

Im trying to find a fish that will eat that.
I want to buy it this week since my lfs has all livestock 25% off

 

[ZoWhat]

I definitely know this works:

Go to the store and buy 3% Hydrogen Peroxide

Pull the effected LR and lay it on a towel on a workable surface... table and chair

Pour your H2O2 in a cup
Find an old used toothbrush

Dip the old toothbrush in the H2O2 and surgically SCRUB the GHA until you see bare LR. Keep dipping the toothbrush and scrubbing.

You can also take a 5min break in btwn scrubs to watch the H2O2 bubbling-action on the effected area. The bubbling action is the oxygenation burning the GHA

Any corals attached to this LR can definitely stand a good 10min out of the water time frame. If it bothers you, you can find a spray bottle and fill it with tank water and spritz/spray the corals to keep them wet.

H2O2 is a great way to burn the GHA off the LR..... and while being non-toxic to your tank.

Meaning.... H2O2 directly applied to an area will not make fish go belly-up nor corals to die bc H2O2 is leaching in your water volume when you put the LR back in. In fact some ppl dosing small amts of H2O2 to increase their pH levels

Hope this helps...

 

[40g Nano]

The hydrogen peroxide kills the beneficial bacteria on the rock, and i have tons of coral on the rocks that have algae on their plugs. I have tried with a toothbrush a few days ago, but most of it does not come off

 

[40g Nano]

Also, all rock is glued together with an epoxy, so I cant take them out

 

[40g Nano]

So what tang is best for eating GHA, or is a foxface or other fish better for it?

 

[Jon_W79]

So what tang is best for eating GHA, or is a foxface or other fish better for it?

I think that a foxface would be the most likely to eat hair algae(and possibly even bubble algae).They are pigs, and I think that a lot of them will eat hair algae if they get hungry enough.

 

[arking_mark]

You've not gotten a real answer to your question. In general, fish aren't great for algae control, especially for GHA.

In my experience algae blennies haven't worked. I also recently added a White Tail Bristletooth Tang...who cleans everything but the hair algae.

Best success I've had is a good cleanup crew. If you want to speed things up, manually removing GHA (w/ or without hydrogen peroxide) works well.

There are also products like Vibrant that speeds things up.

Out competing the GHA with other competitors is good as well. I personally like Calerpa Prolifera...looks great in display tank and isn't hard to remove from rock or anything.