Mollies & Hair Algae in SW Reef

[bucket brigade]

I have a green hair algae problem plaguing me for over 6 months now. I've tried:

reducing feedings to 3 times a week with as little amount of food as possible
reducing lighting times (i've got two 250w MH on for only 4 hours a day)
uping water changes to once a week
running phosban, running carbon
put in a sea hare that will only eat slime & not hair
i've scrubbed the LR
i've pulled the LR & rinsed

i've even have gone barebottom with koralias pushing current all thruout the tank

i have two (2) coralife superskimmers on either side of the tank (HOB)

all methods have FAILED. and i'm quickly losing interest in keeping corals in my tank & may go FOWLR if i dont get the GHA under control.

i'm now hearing about putting MOLLIES in my tank.... that they munch of hair algae (but i'll believe it when i see it)

QUESTIONS:
> do I use BLACK mollies?
> how many for a 75g reef? if more than one, what female-to-male ratio?
> will the mollies eat any of my zoas, shrooms, lps, sps, softies (like a colt)?
> will the mollies get along with my flame angel?

> i assume you acclimate them by starting with FW and add small amounts of SW salinity over the coarse of 5-7 days. then plop them in the reef tank once acclimated, right?

[jenglish]

Originally Posted by bucket brigade

QUESTIONS:
> do I use BLACK mollies?
> how many for a 75g reef? if more than one, what female-to-male ratio?
> will the mollies eat any of my zoas, shrooms, lps, sps, softies (like a colt)?
> will the mollies get along with my flame angel?

> i assume you acclimate them by starting with FW and add small amounts of SW salinity over the coarse of 5-7 days. then plop them in the reef tank once acclimated, right?

The color of the molly is irrelevant, some believe the wild untampered coloration to be hardier but I have seen no evidence of this and several colorations and fin morphs in full SW tanks

I cannot say accurately what # you would need. I would think 4 or 5 to get it taken care of quickly.

If other livebearers are any indication 3-5 females per male would be good to mitigate agression. Unless you are wanting them to breed, in a tank that size, I think it will not matter much

THe mollies should not IMO be able to do any damage whatsoever to a coral.

The flame angel would have the potential to pick on them.

Overall, while biological controls can be an important part of algae control, the amount showing in the pics seems like maybe there is a nutrient issue in the tank. You have taken some steps to lower nutrient intake. I wonder how old is the rock and where it came from? Has it maybe become filled with PO4? How do you run the GFO?

[aquawolf]

If you do decide to go with the mollies, let us know how it turns out for you.

[bucket brigade]

I picked up 3 females and 1 male black mollies for $8 total

They are floating in a bag in my reef right now. I'm putting in a 1/4 cup of SW ever hour for the next upteen hours.

We'll see what happens. I've got a 14day guarantee from the place I bought them from but would never tell them I tried to acclimate them from FW to SW if some or all of them die. I really dont feel bad about taking the 14day guarantee if I need it because I've spent over a thousand dollars at this place, the least they can do is honor a 14day return over $8 worth of fish if it doesnt pan out.

I'll report back on if they live or if they munch on the green hair algae. my guess is that it will fail just like the 27 other things i've tried. we'll see........

[aquawolf]

Sounds like a plan. Best of luck with it.

[jenglish]

I know of others w/ mollies in reef for algal control, so the theory is sound at least. IDK if they actually ate anything or not. You can be a bit more cavalier with salinity adjustments than say a SW fish in hypo but a slow acclimation is safer.

[Mr.Peanut]

I have heard many success stories of mollies eating HA.

Unfortunately, I think your black mollies are doomed to fail. If you do not acclimate them correctly to the salt water, like over a week or two, they will probably be so "out of whack" they may never eat a thing before the die from the osmotic shock. If these fish dont do the job, I would try again but I would acclimate them over a longer period of time.

I could be dead wrong, just my .02

[Mr.Peanut]

Forgot to add, one of our LFS, has a tank of mollies already acclimated to salt for people trying to control HA.

[cutietwo]

Good mollies for SW that do well are the gold mollies. I had 7 in my SW while it was cycling and they did AWESOME. For the HA though a lawn mower blenney does WONDERS. I have one and when i first got him he got rid of my hair algae in a couple weeks it was awesome. Good luck!

[bucket brigade]

Originally Posted by Mr.Peanut

Unfortunately, I think your black mollies are doomed to fail. If you do not acclimate them correctly to the salt water, like over a week or two

okay. i'm now feeling guilty & now off to setup a 5gal IO bucket with a heater in it to acclimate them properly over a week. i had read that there is a 50/50 shot of them living if you just acclimate them over 8-10 hours by putting 1/4 cups of SW in the bag each hour and then releasing them. i hate to kill anything just because of my own haste.

so i'm off to pull the bag out of the tank & release them in a IO 5gal bucket with a heater and slowly acclimate over the next week.

i'll report back.

[zero186]

interested in hearing how this goes i have a turbo snail that isnt doing the job and and i need to get rid of this HA!

[fuzzybob4]

does aney one any pic of thir tanks with the mollies in it?

[jenglish]

not a pic of my tank but there is a black molly in this shot http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...&pagenumber=24

[chrisd]

if this works i can see it now. mollies around the world just went up to 100 hundred bucks a piece due to high demand.

[bucket brigade]

Took me awhile to find it. Its in the red circle.