Freshwater to Saltwater????? Will it work????

[Savatage]

I have a hair-brain idea. Do you think it is possible to convert a freshwater Placostimus over to saltwater????? If this is at all possible, or if there's a way it could possibly be done, let me know. This would solve all of our algae problems, as long as it don't hurt the corals.
I have no problem being the one to try it and experiment with this, but I need some good insight before I risk killing a fish. Let me know what you all think.

[NewMariner]

Wont work....Plecos are South American which dont have any salt in their water and are very sensitive to salt. Long story short, you will kill it by putting salt in the water.

[Savatage]

That just bites.

[Savatage]

Actually. Whay about any other freshwater algae eaters.

[NewMariner]

Im not sure any other freshwater algae eaters would do any good....

May I ask why trying to convert a fresh fish to saltwater just to eat algae? There are plenty of sw fish/inverts that will take care of the algae for you.

[roberts722]

Try snails. They are the closest I have every found to matching a placo's sucking on glass habits.

Turbo's work great but can be destructive....

[Savatage]

I have massive, I mean massing GHA on my rocks. My plan right now is to get some Sally Lightfoots. I need this crap gone.

[AL ur Pal]

mollies eat algae, and they can go into full salt

[orlenz]

I lawnmower blenny, and a sea hare will eat that algae.

[Savatage]

Where exactly can I get a sea hair? I did that with white mollies and the rest of my fish, (ALL) of my fish attacked it badly. Is there any specific kind of molly? I don't want to kill anymore. What about the black ones?

[Rikko]

The only "freshwater" fish that will be ok are mollies - you'll kill anything else in your reef tank.

I'd suggest a sea hare as well - see if you can bug your LFS into ordering them - they aren't expensive.

[HoopsGuru]

I'd search for the source of the problem (bad source water, overfeeding, under skimming, etc.) rather than finding an animal to deal with the the symptom (GHA) of it. Otherwise, you will find that the algae never goes away and you will constantly be trying to find something to keep up with it. If you do a search on lawnmower blennies and sea hares, you will actually find that many people find both hit or miss. In the end, this could compound your problem my increasing the bioload.

My own experience with my LMB shows the opposite of what is recommended. It cannot and does not want to eat long algae in favor of film and vey short algae before it really grows.

[staticfishmonger]

foxface's are known to eat GHA very well...

[roberts722]

you need to find out what is causing the hair algea. just getting a critter to eat it is not solving the problem. why do you have the algea in the first place??

[Savatage]

I think something is in my rock. I guess there's only one way to tell though. Scrub the rock, start with all new water and sand, give it two days and test the water. If it's still bad after brand new water and sand. It the rock.

[HoopsGuru]

What water parameter is making you consider it potentially "bad"?

[Nathan]

If you have phosphates in your rock it could take many many weeks if not several months to fix your algae problem. I went through that 5 years ago and it took 3 months for my tank to look nice.

If I were you I would buy some GFO Phosphate reducing media like PhosLock (Iron Based (rusty-brown colour) not aluminum based (white)). This will help speed up the clean-up process.

-Nathan

[Savatage]

HoopsGuru: I don't really know. I figure if I test the new water after a couple days and it tests positive for PO4 of Nitrate I think that will tell me if it's from the rocks.

How about this.... I had a very well looking tank. It looked great. Then one day I had some problems with ich. I treated my tank and fed my fish crap loads or shrimpbrine with massive amounts of Garlic Extract in it. I wanted to help build their ammune system. I then got massive algae growth on my sand and it quickly spread to my rocks. I have never got it under control since.

This leads me to believe that my rocks aren't full of phos. I think that if I dump the sand, go new sand, new water, and some Sally lightfoots, turbos, and hermits, I believe the problem will subside easily as long as I keep the nutrients down. I have gotten used to feeding my fish only twice a week. All I can do is try and see what happens. I'll give it a month and if it doesn't look like it's subsiding, then I will cook my rock, half tank at a time.

[roberts722]

So you have a refugium?? Sounds to me like to need some way to export the excess nutirents....

[DocG]

Excellent water parameters are definitely a great thing to fight hair algae and in your case it looks like the feeding that you did deteriorated the water quality enough to cause the outbreak of algae.

However; when hair algae gets a hold it is very, very, very difficult to beat it through good husbandry.

I let hair algae get a hold of my tank several years ago during a month of laziness and then I started to fight it. I did every single trick in the book water quality wise to beat it and I had perfect water quality for years and it was still there. It was by no means out of control and I was able to slow the progression, but I still had to take all the rocks out once every 4-6 months to scrub them down and remove most of the hair algae.

You see, in hair algae like in most things, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

I got a sea hare to solve the problem and within a month at the most every last speck of hair algae that was in the tank was gone. That was months ago and there has been no sign of any problem algae at all. Now that I have cured the disease (metaphorically speaking) I can use good husbandry practices to keep it from reoccurring.

[Savatage]

Where can I get a sea hair? Does anyone ship them anymore, considering the fact that they usually die?

[DocG]

I did some browsing and Marine Depot Live has them.

As far as them dying - do you mean that they die with shipping (I got mine from LFS) or that they die from starvation after they have eaten all of the algae?

I acclimated him using the drip method for over 3 hours. The LFS that I bought it from also has a very, very good acclimation process.

When I was done with mine (this is a 55 gallon tank) I gave it to a fellow reefer for his algae problem with the instructions that he was to give it to another guy when his problem was solved, and so on.

[Savatage]

Have you ever heard of Live Aquaria or Foster & Smiths carrying them? I heard they die durring shipping. Very, very fragile to ship.

[DocG]

They have them on the site but they say coming soon. I would e-mail them and ask.

Sea Hare (http://liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?pCatId=726)

[Savatage]

Thanks. I'm going to Foster and Smiths today. I'll see what I can find out.