Algae devouring fish for new tank

[Kmst80]

Can i get some insight of what fish you would pick for the algae clean up.
New Tank is 6 foot 200 gallons.
Got a coral beauty and a Bristletooth tang from the old Tank but i am looking for that algae eating monster.
Not to keen on foxface, could live with something like scribbled rabbitfish( grows quite big though).
Or would you go another Tang?...Purple Tang?

Would be nice if it would eat hairalgae and stuff like caulerpa, sea lettuce( macro algae)

Show me the Algae Eater...lol...


Ahhh forgot...gotta be reefsafe

 

[Boreas_SA]

Foxface might not be the prettiest, but they are the best at eating algae and probably the best bet to be reef safe. My old yellow foxface used to even eat Bryopsis. Had a stellatus rabbitfish as well, but it took chunks out of my one leather coral despite being fed a lot and looking fat, so a lot of them are not reef safe at all.

 

[Tired]

They're not fish, but tuxedo urchins are almost completely reef-safe, barring their tendency to move tiny loose frags, and will chomp on hair algae and macroalgae. Plus, they're neat.

 

[Dave1993]

my purple tang don't touch algae in the tank but you should get 1

 

[Kmst80]

They're not fish, but tuxedo urchins are almost completely reef-safe, barring their tendency to move tiny loose frags, and will chomp on hair algae and macroalgae. Plus, they're neat.

I Got 3 rock boring urchins and 1 collector urchin. They are by far the best algae cleaners in the tank, love the coraline algae too. Love those guys and planing on more. Just after a Fish addition too.

 

[Cthulukelele]

Urchins are my favorite as well, but for fish in a tank that size any zebrasoma tangs or rabbit fish would do a great job chewing on algae.

 

[Andreas' Reef]

Lawnmower blenny if you want. You could probably do a few of them since your tank is so big. Also, any zebrasomas will do well, including yellow, purple, scopas. Tomini would also eat algae

 

[Kmst80]

Lawnmower blenny if you want. You could probably do a few of them since your tank is so big. Also, any zebrasomas will do well, including yellow, purple, scopas. Tomini would also eat algae

Thanks for the Zebrasoma hint, would love to get a Gem Tang but they are 2.5 k here in Australia. At the moment the purple is first followed by the Desjardini Tang. Again yellow tangs are very rare here and if you get one it's 1.5 k.

 

[Andreas' Reef]

Thanks for the Zebrasoma hint, would love to get a Gem Tang but they are 2.5 k here in Australia. At the moment the purple is first followed by the Desjardini Tang. Again yellow tangs are very rare here and if you get one it's 1.5 k.

Purple tend to be the most aggresive of the zebrasoma family,

 

[Cthulukelele]

Thanks for the Zebrasoma hint, would love to get a Gem Tang but they are 2.5 k here in Australia. At the moment the purple is first followed by the Desjardini Tang. Again yellow tangs are very rare here and if you get one it's 1.5 k.

If you can get a foxface rabbitfish, they're the most voracious algae eaters I've personally witnessed irl

 

[Cthulukelele]

They're also nice unlIke purple tangs (usually)

 

[blaxsun]

The top algae eater in my tank is a quoy's parrotfish, followed by either the foxface or lawnmower blenny. The pair of tuxedo urchins also do a decent job for their size.

The powder brown and bristletooth I purchased recently also seem very keen to make it into the top 5.

 

[Kmst80]

The top algae eater in my tank is a quoy's parrotfish, followed by either the foxface or lawnmower blenny. The pair of tuxedo urchins also do a decent job for their size.

The powder brown and bristletooth I purchased recently also seem very keen to make it into the top 5.

How big is your tank?...I saw the parrot fish can grow up to 40 cm! My Bristletooth loves the filamentous algae but won't touch anything else.

 

[blaxsun]

How big is your tank?...I saw the parrot fish can grow up to 40 cm! My Bristletooth loves the filamentous algae but won't touch anything else.

160 gallons for the display. I'd estimate our quoy's parrotfish is probably 7", so no more than 18cm. I don't think he'll get anywhere near 40cm in captivity (maybe another 1" in my tank, tops). The parrotfish scrapes rocks down to the white and he's also fond of scraping algae off the overtake comb filters, return outlets, etc.

The lawnmower blenny, urchins, spiny astrea snails and abalone pretty much take care of any algae on the rocks or barnacles in the tank. The new tangs we added seem to be really excited about the accumulated algae growth on the back of the tank and have been enthusiastically ripping chunks off all over the place.