Fish

[Wonderboy]

Is there a fish out there that eats hair algae?

Thanks!!!!

~ Wonderboy!

 

[soritan]

I've heard that american flag fish eat hair algae, but they're the only ones I know off hand.

I had a problem with hair algae before I upgraded to my 20gH. I rid myself of it the catostrophic, unknowledgeable, "nuke 'em!" kind of way. I could never rid myself of the algae in my 10g, so when I went to go upgrade to my 20g, I bleach dipped everything, every plant and infected part, with the 1/20 bleach:water solution. It paled immediately, but clung to my plants. Over the course of a month or so, it fell off the plants and sort of polluted my new tank. I have no hair algae now, but it was quite a bit of work.

 

[fishboytoo]

Ameca splendens a.k.a. butterfly goodeid

http/www.goodeiden.de/html/splendens3.html

I have one, and my hair algae is gone. I can't say 100% that the fish ate it, and that it wasn't out-competed by my plants or some other parameter changed, but it's gone now.

They aren't very small fish though, keep that in mind.

 

[dwarfgourami]

Amano shrimps (cardina japonica). They also have the advantage of being non-aggressive and have a low bio-load. You need to get a small group of them to give them confidence. My tank looked like an Old English Sheepdog until I got my 5 in; a week later the plants had re-emerged and now it's the best looking tank I have.

 

[soritan]

Amano shrimps (cardina japonica). They also have the advantage of being non-aggressive and have a low bio-load. You need to get a small group of them to give them confidence. My tank looked like an Old English Sheepdog until I got my 5 in; a week later the plants had re-emerged and now it's the best looking tank I have.

"Old english sheepdog", , that's a fantastic image.

Mine looked like a yeti.

 

[Wonderboy]

Does anyone know if it is hard to get a couple butterfly goodeids??? Or where??

 

[drw32]

Live bearers love the stuff. Get a couple male guppies or mollies.

 

[Wonderboy]

Live bearers love the stuff. Get a couple male guppies or mollies.

Gotta stick with the larger fish - Will be rooming with black ghost knife, tire track eel, African tiger fish and silver arowana (the ATF and Aro are young right now, so an algae-eating fish at minimum 2 inches would be safe just to get the job done).

Is there another way to get rid of the stuff besides fish?

Thanks,
~ Wonderboy!

 

[a.i.m]

Ive 2 siamese algae eaters that LOVE hair algae, they are both 5-6 " . Ive not a single strand of the stuff !!! B)

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

Get yourself a large molly, they eat hair algae constantly.

 

[andywg]

The algae will be caused by an inbalance in the lighting/nutrients/plants mix.

Try asking the green thumbed peeps down in the planted section on how to prevent algae from appearing, they should have a fairly good answer for you.