Hair Algae

[Les1]

Right now my reef tank is about two months old, and I have tons of hair algae all over the rocks. The tank is a 55 gallon, and right now all I have in there are one brittle star, one cleaner shrimp, and nineteen cerith snails. I was looking at a Scopas Tang, because they had a lot of them at my LFS, but then I got to reading about them on the internet and learned that they can grow quite big. What kind of fish would you suggest to get to clean up this excess algae?
Thanks
Les

 

[NoriMuncher]

Don't know for sure, but I wouldn't count on a tang to even look twice at hair algae... my yellow tang, and later hippos tang, wouldn't touch it. My sally lightfoot crab's like a lawnmower on steroids, but not sure if he's safe with all the critters you got. Do a search on hair algae, I'm sure it's been discussed before, and suspect there are environmental causes.

 

[Les1]

Ok,
Yeah, I am not even going to consider getting any crabs or hermit crabs, just have no interest in them.
Thanks For The Information,
Les

 

[NoriMuncher]

Yeah, I thought the crab would be lame too, just got it for algae control. Turns out it's one of the most interesting things in my tank, always on the move, ridiculously acrobatic.

 

[Les1]

The reason that I dont want a crab is not because I think crabs are lame, its more because I have read alot abot them moving stuff around and eating things you want.
Les

 

[scottwhite36]

Hey how is everyone doing? I was wondering if anyone could email me some information on coral reefs in general, i am doing research on how coral effects land masses for my college biology class. If you could send any information you can to [email protected]

 

[MedicineMan1]

The hair algae is part of the normal maturation process. You may NEED to get some crabs, hermits or otherwise, and more snails to contain it. Also, an algae blennie (aka lawnmower blennie) should help!
I have a scopas tang that never grew much beyond 3 inches (he's 2 years old now). Don't know what's up with that other than he's rather shy when feeding time comes around and he doesn't eat the caulerpa I put in for him.

 

[AlexS!]

i had same problem when i cycled, put in yellow tang, ate it all in one night.

 

[Goldmoon]

I have the same problem in a 20g tank. I have 11 cerith snails (lost one). They do a good job on some hair algae but my 10 Astrea snails do a better job at it. If you do not mind stuff bullying your corals, you can add some turbo snails, they are great hair algae eaters. But they also like some other macro algae

This is why I do not have them in my tank anymore. But still... you can put some to help you get rid of your hair algae problem and just return them to a LFS after the job is done, they are really easy to remove.
I also added recently 2 mythrax crabs (emerald crabs). They are tireless little hair algae eaters. I did not want any crabs in my tank either... but chosing between hair algae and bubble algae or crabs I chose the crabs.. and well... I like them

 

[Anonymous]

Drip Kalk and get a blue tuxedo urchin.

Worked for me.
http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1999/june/wb/default.asp