Will my algae blenny starve

[pureconcept]

I have a 125 gallon tank thats about 5 months old thats growing into a mixed reef tank. One of my earliest fish is an algae blenny/lawnmower blenny. It was purchased to help control algae however its come to have the opposite effect. It wont eat any foods i have tried to feed it and only eats the green algae on the rocks and sometimes the glass. My daughter loves this fish because its ugly/different and i want it to stay healthy. So i started increasing my lighta and letting algae grow. I just got my hanna phosphate checker and measured 0.41ppm. I am reading that this is very high and will hurt corals and cause algae problems. I was wondering if experienced people had an opinion on whether lowering my phosphates down to .1 or lower would be a good idea. Less algae or at least keeping it at a controllable level and coral growth are both important ideas to me. How much does the algaeblenny really need. He looks kind of fat now too but i dont know if thats normal. I am thinking of installing a gfo reactor. Any info or opinions will be appreciated.

 

[laverda]

Have you tried feeding it seaweed?

 

[pureconcept]

Yes i tried green nori sheets. I have hikari red and purple seaweed being delivered to try. I also bought nyos true algae fish food to try. I currently have something in my tank and i might have to put him on qt so ive been buying foodsto tey

 

[Crevalle]

I’ve only had mine a couple weeks and he eats nothing but the algae off the rocks. I’ve tried hikari sea weed extreme pellets and little rolls of nori tucked into holes in the rock. I think he is currently eating enough but I’d feel better if he ate some of the other things.

 

[pureconcept]

Thats what i mean. I just mobed him in the qt tank for treatment. It will need to stay for 6 weeks so the dt can be fallow and eliminate the velvet. Im afraid he wont survive without rocks and algae for 6 weeks

 

[boboyo]

Thats what i mean. I just mobed him in the qt tank for treatment. It will need to stay for 6 weeks so the dt can be fallow and eliminate the velvet. Im afraid he wont survive without rocks and algae for 6 weeks

First off, make sure the fallow period for velvet is 6 weeks (im not an expert on this but I've read that even the 86 days for ich is overkill as this number was quoting a research paper but someone dug up the paper recently and there was 0 mention of ich surviving that long in the paper the 86 day is said to come.)


2nd : I recently went through QTing a lawnmower blenny that only ate algae off rocks... he was totally fine, I fed nori on a pvc pipe for him before going to sleep, never saw him eat it but read somewhere that they do eat it that way, especially at night or something. (might be wrong but he was fine!!!)

Another thing you can do if its a longer QT and you're worried is : (and I just thought of this)

Why dont you put your lights on top of the QT tank and let them run for a few hours a day so you get that film algae on your pvc and glass? My lawnmower loves pecking on the algae on the glass in the DT if i dont clean it. This is just an idea, idk what kind of QT you're doing and if it'll work so you'll have to look into that