What's a 'good' algae eater for my reef?

[vetteguy53081]

Pin cushion urchin works best for me

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

I like pencil urchins and top crown snails.
Smaller tanks fishys I like high combtooth Blenny.
D

 

[muzikalmatt]

Can you post a picture? Does he eat the frags? I would love to get one but the problem is 2 week vacations and feeding him with an automatic feeder. Can that work somehow?

Oh you definitely don't have to feed the urchin, unless your tank is completely devoid of algae. Mine will even go after coralline algae if all the other stuff is gone. I just tend to give him an extra snack of nori if I catch him near the top of the tank where I can give it to him. He definitely enjoys it. I'll find some pictures of him carrying things around. I know I have a few.

 

[Sebastiancrab]

Oh you definitely don't have to feed the urchin, unless your tank is completely devoid of algae. Mine will even go after coralline algae if all the other stuff is gone. I just tend to give him an extra snack of nori if I catch him near the top of the tank where I can give it to him. He definitely enjoys it. I'll try to find a picture of him carrying stuff around and post it. I know I have several.

I would be worried about him running out of algae if he mows down the stuff. I don't have that much.

 

[muzikalmatt]

@Sebastiancrab I found some pictures of my pincushion urchin carrying things around.

Here's a picture of him carrying a favia frag on his head. This was back in August of 2019.

Here he is carrying an astrea snail around.

His name is Pinhead and he just might be my favorite thing in the tank.

 

[Neon_Devil]

Can you post a picture? Does he eat the frags? I would love to get one but the problem is 2 week vacations and feeding him with an automatic feeder. Can that work somehow?

They can sometimes pick up frag plugs and wear them as armor. Mine just uses coarse aquarium gravel.

 

[Sebastiancrab]

@Sebastiancrab I found some pictures of my pincushion urchin carrying things around.

Here's a picture of him carrying a favia frag on his head. This was back in August of 2019.

Here he is carrying an astrea snail around.

His name is Pinhead and he just might be my favorite thing in the tank.

He is a tiny thing. How big will he get?

 

[muzikalmatt]

He is a tiny thing. How big will he get?

He's actually a pretty decent size now. Here is a recent picture of him with the full tank so you can get a sense of scale. I got him about 3 years ago when he was maybe the size of a golf ball and he's probably doubled in size (not quite the size of a baseball). He won't get much bigger than this I don't think.

He's on the back wall above the right rockwork.

 

[Ober_Reef]

Check out reefcleaners.com they have a ton of great recommendations and took great care of me.

 

[Ober_Reef]

Check out reefcleaners.com they have a ton of great recommendations and recently took great care of me.

 

[Pistondog]

Can you post a picture? Does he eat the frags? I would love to get one but the problem is 2 week vacations and feeding him with an automatic feeder. Can that work somehow?

Urchins decorate themselves with anything loose. Will scour the rocks.

 

[C. Eymann]

Scarlett hermit crabs

Yes, they are more pricey, but they are worth it, more likely to watch other algaes that snails, mex red legs and blue legs won't touch, are more herbivorous rather than ominovourus like other crabs, which means more reef safe towards snails, corals, etc

 

[i cant think]

Manual removal works for me (Screw the blenny, I grabbed a Escenius when the original plan was either an Ember Blenny or a Starry blenny).
I do have snails and Urchins in my larger tank, and probably will grab a tuxedo urchin for my Nano.

 

[FiddlersReef]

His tank is not large enough...

Oh geez, no reading comprehension points for me today. I totally missed the tank size in the original post. ;Sorry

In that case yes, totally agree with snails and urchins. My tuxedo is definitely a grazer.

 

[Andreas' Reef]

Starry Blenny!!!

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Can you post a picture? Does he eat the frags? I would love to get one but the problem is 2 week vacations and feeding him with an automatic feeder. Can that work somehow?

Its funny until he drags a piece of rock across your glass and scratches it like they did mine, thats why I ultimately removed them. just make sure you have enough room between rock and glass to fit an urchin carrying more rock.
they keep moving and squeeze into places, absolute bulls! Seriously consider your situation too, if you superglue frags like me good luck they made me re glue everything multiple times...I have 2 pincushions you can have if you want them anyone for sure local can

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Its funny until he drags a piece of rock across your glass and scratches it like they did mine, thats why I ultimately removed them. just make sure you have enough room between rock and glass to fit an urchin carrying more rock.
they keep moving and squeeze into places, absolute bulls! Seriously consider your situation too, if you superglue frags like me good luck they made me re glue everything multiple times...I have 2 pincushions you can have if you want them anyone for sure local can

 

[Andrei George]

Então, acho que preciso de um herbívoro para o meu recife, estou em uma batalha sem fim de esfregar rochas e dosar fosfatos para mantê-los na faixa desejada. Eu tenho um AIO de 50gl, então não posso ter nenhum Tangs. Estou considerando um Black Sailfin Blenny, e queria saber quais outras opções eu deveria considerar.

Atualmente, há um Pink Streaked Wrasse, um Royal Gramma, um Yellow Wrasse e um Fairy Wrasse no tanque.

Ouriço

 

[damsels are not mean]

Depends on the algae. I believe nudibranchs like sea hares and lettuce are the best pound-for-pound but they have drawbacks (hard to keep alive, big nutrient bombs when they die, get stuck in overflows and blended in powerheads). Next would be urchins, also some drawbacks (eats coralline and some softies, may scratch acrylic, some can hurt if handled) but not as bad. Limpets, turbo snails, trochus, astrea are all the best at scrubbing rocks for you but won't tackle the tall grass. Ceriths help with the sand and harder to reach spots.

As far as fishes, tangs are great at keeping algae at bay but much like the snails will not make a dent if you don't scrub it down first.

I have seen a lot of support for the idea that court jester gobies eat both cyano and hair algae. There's videos on the internet and people have reported hair algae going away quite quickly after their introduction.

 

[Coralsdaily]

Snails, tuxedo urchin