Clowns eating Hair Algae?

[IceWish]

I recently got a very young pair of clowns. They ate the first day i put them in the tank but when i tried to feed them a few days later they were never interested in anyting i fed them. I have a patch of hair algae on one of my liverock and with the little extra feeding it really got out of hand.Now i see my clowns eating the hair algae all the time, their belly is always fat with hair algae.....I see hair algae going in and a different color hair algae coming out.....Is this safe for them to eat? will they get everything they need from this? Im not taking any drastic measures to remove the hair algae right now. Im waiting for the tank to balance itself out first then ill take the steps to manually remove it.

[DaveG99]

I have never heard of a clown eating hair algea. I wish mine would eat it too!

[fishdoc11]

My pair will pick little bits of algae off of my Sea Swirl nozzle frequently. I assume this natural similar to a damsel that actually cultivates a patch of algae in the wild. It's probably more healthy for them than the fish food we feed. I am assuming here and it would be interesting to hear from a clownfish person on this.

Chris

[Fishboy42]

That would be a dream--a hair algae-eating clownfish

I've read that some clownfish species in the ocean can consume up to 30% algae (particularly the skunk complex species), and I notice some of our clowns picking at algae occasionally. We also add a small % of algae to our gel-based diet in an attempt to mimic their natural diet and include any nutrients they may otherwise be missing, etc.

Clownfish are primarily planktonic feeders and eat mostly small crustaceans (copepods, shrimps), worms, small fish(!), etc, although they do graze sometimes and may actually ingest algae incidentally while eating tunicates, worms, "pods," and other animals that they hunt along/in the substrate.

Their captive diet should probably be made-up of mostly meaty high-protein foods for best health. Perhaps try some small pieces of grated table shrimp or adult vitamin-enriched frozen brine to see if you can get them interested in a different food. Even small pelleted foods are sometimes pretty popular with clownfish. HTH

Matt