In your experience, what eats hair algae?

[Miami Reef]

I’m looking for personal anecdotes of herbivores that eat Green Hair Algae.


Do you have something you’ve seen eat green hair algae?


This is what my hair algae looks like. They are small parches spread throughout the tank. My tank is almost 2 years old, and I never dealt with hair algae until now.

2/6/24 update

The only thing that ate the derbesia hair algae was a desjardini tang. It completely cleaned it. I can’t find a single piece of it.

 

[FrugalReeferJon]

An urchin, as long as the GHA isn’t crazy long.

 

[AydenLincoln]

Dolabella sea hares do the best job in my experience! The lawnmowers of the ocean.

 

[Miami Reef]

An urchin, as long as the GHA isn’t crazy long.

What type of urchin?

 

[Red_Beard]

Whole tank was mobbed by gha a few months ago. I added a tuxido urchin, 3 turbo snails and 6 astraea snails to my 75 gallon. Those coupled with manually pulling the big chunks has it licked now. After i pulled a section a stuck the turbos on it and they mowed down all the stubbs. Worked great!

 

[FrugalReeferJon]

What type of urchin?

Tuxedos

 

[gbroadbridge]

An urchin, as long as the GHA isn’t crazy long.

What type of urchin?

ed: oops, I was beaten to the question :)

 

[Reefer Matt]

Pincushion urchins and astrea snails work for me. Gotta remove the big stuff by hand first, or get a sea hare.

 

[DanyL]

I mean, most herbivores would eat GHA.

But really - a good amount of tangs, Strombuses (Conch) and Turbo snails, a couple of Stomatellas, one lawnmower Blenny and an Urchin would do the job just right both cleaning it up first as well as maintaining it short for the long run.

 

[Kzang]

I’m looking for personal anecdotes of herbivores that eat Green Hair Algae.

I was recommended a Bullet Goby by eatbreakfast, which I already ordered.

I wanted some other options, too.

Do you have something you’ve seen eat green hair algae?

Get a Dr. Reef's wild caught court jester goby. Their main diet in the wild is green hair algae. they also sell a captive bred one, but the wild will apparently eat it way more.

 

[Tactical Reefkeeping]

A bristletooth tang I had the same problem in my tank and put one of those guys in there make sure you have a big enough tank and they are great to watch and see and they get the job done

 

[Tired]

Get a Dr. Reef's wild caught court jester goby. Their main diet in the wild is green hair algae. they also sell a captive bred one, but the wild will apparently eat it way more.

I have a Hector's goby, which is very similar, and it doesn't put much of a dent in hair algae. They're slender fish that max out around 2", so they just don't eat much.
(Also, I've not heard good things about Dr. Reef. Something about shipping and disease issues.)

A tuxedo urchin is a good bet. You'll have to pull long tufts out by hand (ideally with gloves on in case of things tangled inside) to allow most invertebrates to get a good bite on the stuff, but an urchin will mow it down if it's relatively short, and a tuxedo should cause minimal other trouble.

 

[Miami Reef]

Update and edit. I came home with 10 urchins, but I put 6 of the really big ones in my QT tank that I will exchange tomorrow.

@Derrick0580 was right, there is a big risk of them bulldozing the acros.

I will only keep the small ones.

 

[Derrick0580]

10 urchins? Hope all your corals are glued down quite well!!

 

[Miami Reef]

10 urchins? Hope all your corals are glued down quite well!!

Honestly, that’s why I’ve avoided the urchins and originally went with the sea hares. I think I’ll exchange them for more mexican turbos tomorrow. Thank you.

 

[Roadkillstewie]

I’m looking for personal anecdotes of herbivores that eat Green Hair Algae.

I was recommended a Bullet Goby by eatbreakfast, which I already ordered.

I wanted some other options, too.

Do you have something you’ve seen eat green hair algae?


UPDATE: Look at post #13 for the update on what I did.

Well you already made the plunge, but...saltwater acclimated mollies.

reputedly Urchins will gobble algae... micro & macro, including coralline algae.

 

[Red_Beard]

Honestly, that’s why I’ve avoided the urchins and originally went with the sea hares. I think I’ll exchange them for more mexican turbos tomorrow. Thank you.

They are kinda fun like that though, as long as all the little stuff is pretty solid, you are good. Mine havent picked up any big frags, but definitely some frag plugs with zoas. They like zoas for whatever reason. This one has been wearing these scrambled eggs for over a month now. They both seem happy, and the yellow pop makes it easy to spot the urchin. Also, the rock it is on was covered with hair algea, havent touched it in a month either. Just a few tiny stems left to go, but it, like my hairline, is receeding.

 

[tzabor10]

I’m looking for personal anecdotes of herbivores that eat Green Hair Algae.

I was recommended a Bullet Goby by eatbreakfast, which I already ordered.

I wanted some other options, too.

Do you have something you’ve seen eat green hair algae?


UPDATE: Look at post #13 for the update on what I did.

Have a long spine urchin that destroys all plant matter. Also eats coralline algae and some corals. So not the best. But it is SO cool and my oldest anything besides live rocks.
My display tank has Hermit crabs, Desjardini Sailfin, Blue Tang, Foxface, Coralline Beauty, Turbos. Some small algae directly in front of the powerheads. It’s mostly clean.

 

[Slocke]

UPDATE:

So my tank has recently started getting a LOT of small green hair algae spots. I tried sea hares and they did NOT touch it.

I just came home from the LFS. I did it.

View attachment 3466963 View attachment 3466964 View attachment 3466966


I came home with 10 urchins and 10 mexican turbos.

These are the mexican turbo snails
View attachment 3466965

My solution every time and they both do a great job. Just be careful with your clams. They are bulldozers!

 

[Miami Reef]

My solution every time and they both do a great job. Just be careful with your clams. They are bulldozers!

I decided I’ll exchange 6 of the massive ones I bought, and keep the 4 small urchins tomorrow.

Those big urchins will cause me not to sleep at night lol. I have the really big ones in my QT.

Hopefully there will be some changes around Miami’s reef lol. Herbivores all the way.