Algae Blenny & Watchman Goby

Waterbury Guy · 02-12-2003, 08:28 AM

About a month ago I upgraded my lights from 40W NO to 220W PC. Since then my tank has exploded with hair algae. Tanks has been running for a year and I have always used RO/DI H20 from the LFS. Nitrates are less than 10. I'm considering getting an Alage Blenny to help fight the hair algae, will there be a conflict with my Yellow Watchman Goby? Current livestock is in my sig. Thanks in advance for the help.

hooked · 02-12-2003, 12:42 PM

Not sure if they are the same but is a algae blenny and lawnmower blenny? I have had 2 of them in my day. I must say that I always here people talking about them eating hair algae but I have never seen them eat it. I had a lawnmower in my 38 before I had a bad hair algae outbreak, I never seen him eat it. From day one that I started to see the algae I had to pull by hand. It got so bad that I was pulling it every 2-3 days. My lawnmower was to busy eatting all my pods

.

aliendomain · 02-12-2003, 02:21 PM

I have a yellow watchman and a lawnmower with now issues at all. I also agree with hooked, while my lawnmower does eat algae it never ate any hair algae, nor did my bicolor, but my turbos ate it all, now I don't have any.

Waterbury Guy · 02-12-2003, 02:40 PM

Thanks guys. I think what I'm heearing is don't count on the blenny to cure me of the hair algae. I only have 3-5 turbos in my 55. How many would you reccomend I have?

aliendomain · 02-12-2003, 02:48 PM

I started with 18 but I think I have about 10 left, they ate all the hair not some are starving to death (good thing they are cheep).

Calvinc4s · 02-12-2003, 02:59 PM

If you do go with the turbos, it might be a good idea to take some of them back to the LFS after the problem is solved.
Not to sound like a bleeding heart, but agh why not?

hooked · 02-12-2003, 04:05 PM

I agree with Cal, check with your LFS see if he will credit you back when you get the hair under control. I would get 2 dozen. I would get a mix of snails if possible. What your best chance would be is to manually pull out the hair algae then place the snail on the spot you pulled from. He can then suck the roots out and hope you can get better control that way. Only thing I liked about my blenny was that he would keep the back glass clean /shrug. Plus he looked cool

Mrs Smith · 02-12-2003, 04:10 PM

FWIW, we battled hair algae for a loooong time, and finally have it nipped in the bud. Our lawnmower much prefers the algae on the glass, but he's a way cool fish. As hubby puts it "How could you not love a fish with eyebrows!"

Turbos. And lots of them. We bought them by the dozens for our 135.

Start with 25 of them. You can easily feed them nori if/when they eat your hair. That, and your LFS should take them back, or you can pass them on/trade with other reefers. Whenever someone around here breaks down a tank, there are always people looking for snails.

JME,
Danielle

Alice · 02-13-2003, 12:39 AM

Not to mention that you don't want to have to pull stinky dead turbos out of your tank...P U!!!