What fish or invert would be best to control hair allege?

[fishyG]

I have a 55 with about 50 pounds of LR 1 Clown goby, 1 Watchman goby, and 1 Diamond goby. I had some turbo snails and red legged hermit crabs, but the stainless steel clam on my sump pump had a non ss screw in it and it killed the inverts. Now that I have fixed that issue and have the water back to normal and the fish back to normal and in the main tank again, I would like to get either a new fish (or two) and some more inverts in the tank. But I do have a lot of hair allege that has cropped up now.
Thanks for any help and advice,
G

 

[StripesTheEel]

Well IMO you have a lot of room to play with for livestock..

Blennies such as algae blenny, lawnmowers will keep algae under control but wont necessarily take care of it all..

I'd do an blenny of some sort, pair of clowns, and a royal gramma.. Throw some shrimps in there as well and that would be fine!!

What is your lighting schedule? That may play apart in the algae problem?
Also what are your phosphates, nitrates etc..?

 

[fishyG]

The lights are on about 9 hours a day, and the tank gets very little sunlight (maybe an hour or two a day). The numbers are good in the water too. The hair allege started to grow after the rust killed the inverts. I pulled the fish and moved them to a hospital tank until I got the water clean and back to where it should be. But in that time the hair allege started. I don't mind it really, but it would be nice to have something that will help keep it to a minimum.
G

 

[StripesTheEel]

Well any of the above mentioned would be fine..a yellow tang is a 55g would be pushing it as 75g is really recommended but he'd do a treat with algae control..

but i'd stick with the blennies..

 

[bamaboy2go]

I have a yellow tang and he keeps all of the green allege out of the tank, plus he gives the cat something to do as he works the LR and I get to clean the glass to keep paw prints off. :?

 

[Phyl]

Turbo snails are great for GHA too. Get a ton of them (50? 100?).

 

[seaham358]

50 or 100 in a 55??? I don't have that many in my 125. I would start with a lower number of snails that way when the algae is gone there hopefully will be enough food for them to live.
When you say your numbers are good what do you mean by good? Post the numbers. What type of water are you using, tap, ro, ro/di?
Any nitrate or phosphates can help algae grow.

 

[AMANIQU77]

Yellow Tang hands down

 

[Phyl]

I put 100 into my 120. I easily put 50 into my 65.

 

[demodiki]

There's alway debate on how many snails to keep. I hate having to pick them up after they tump over. Crazy astreas.

 

[Fluff]

The best fish I've ever had that would consume hair algae is sw mollies. But, taking care of your phosphates would get rid of it as well. Do some extra water changes with aged/aerated sw mixed with RO/DI water.