Any macroalgae munchers?

[dheinze]

I have a lot of macroalgae in my tank. Is there any fish/invert that would eat it?

There are three different kinds:

a redish macroalgae:



A brown one:



and a green one (lower left):



Thanks...hope the pictures work...its my first attempt

[kingfisher62]

A foxface might do the trick! Mine cleaned out my tank of problem algae and loves chaeto.

[CarlC]

Any idea what is chewing on your foxface?

Carl

[Justin/TiV]

a naso tang did an awesome job on macro algae in my tank...but it was a different kind

[kingfisher62]

Originally posted by CarlC
Any idea what is chewing on your foxface?

Carl

Yes, that would be my Tomato Clown. That shot was a couple days after introducing him into the tank.
Pick on the new guy,syndrome, you know what I mean.
His tail fin regenerated in a week and now they seem to be the best of friends.

[u418936]

I used to have a huge macroalgae problem. My two foxfaces ignored my macroalgae for years, but they suddenly took a liking to it when I introduced a Kole tang. Maybe when they saw the Kole picking at the algae, they figured they should give it a try. Now, I hardly have any macroalgae left.

[dheinze]

I've heard that foxfaces (or maybe rabbit fish?) sometimes eat zooanthids...did yours?

u418936 - so did the kole tang or the rabbit fish do the real damage to macroalgae?

Thanks for the suggestions..any others?

[u418936]

My foxfaces never bother my corals. I've heard that some people have had bad luck, though. I don't like to take risks, but I have way too many zooanthids, so I wouldn't mind if my fish started eating them.

I used to pull a full tupperware's worth of macroalgae out of my aquarium every week. Now, most of it is gone. The foxfaces devoured it, and the Kole tang picks at the new stuff that grows.

It's really strange that the foxfaces never touched the algae until I introduced the tang. I'd given up on ever getting rid of it.

[jda]

If you want it gone, remove as much of it by hand as you can before you introduce a fish/invert.

I have had 3 magnificent rabbitfish and they are all decent (as good as fish get) macro eaters and mine have been reef safe.

If you want to get it for sure, then nothing works as well as mexican turbo snails - lots of them.

[dheinze]

Hmmm..I'll have to look into those snails. One issue I have is that my tank is not that big. At only 60g, its minimal for fishes the size of a kole tang or foxface....

[jda]

A foxface won't be able to live in a 60G for long. My magnificents have grown fast and I had to get rid of them and get smaller ones.

Mexican turbos will eat any type of macro after the "easy" algae is gone. I have used them on byropsis and bubble algae. I would get 30 or 40 for your tank. Of course, remove as much as you can manually beforehand. Make sure that they are mexican turbos and not astreas (sometimes called turbos). That many snails will starve after the algae is gone, so you will have to get rid of 80% of them after they have done their job.

[delsol650]

My fox face never ate any corals/zoos/palys etc... only algae and food I add. I'm getting rid of mine, getting too big for my liking and might get a baby one.

[techigirl78]

I forget the name of the brown algae, but if you try to manually remove it be very careful. Any little piece that breaks off will start a new colony where it settles. For my algae, my orange spotted blenny and yellow tang ended it.

Personally, I don't think I'd put a yellow tang or foxface in a 58 unless you have plans to upgrade at some point. Most urchins are excellent algae grazers, maybe try one of those for a short time?