seahorse safe hair algae eaters

[pledosophy]

Lawnmower Blennies are not seahorse safe IME. Blue legged hermits are also more on the risky side, however a lawn mower blennie is capable of killing a seahorse. Often times seahores grow algae on there backs and the chasing of the blennie can be quite stressful.

4 seahares in a 75g tank aren't going to last you very long a all. IME two in a 65g was overkill. JME

Nuissance alage in a new tank is no that uncommon.
Even though your phosphates measure at 0, it is still possible and very likely they are there and being absorbed by the macro and hair algaes.

I'd keep doing what your doing, remember to rinse the mysis for the seahorses and, keep a close eye out. Very often new tanks will experience a nuissance algae phase, just keep on top of it.


BTW IME Turbo's love red macro's. :D

[Sea~Horse~Whisperer]

Ok maybe something got missed here, lol. The 75g tank will not be a seahorse tank. It will be a reef tank. The seahares are dwarf seahares and are on LOAN from my LFS. I won't be keeping them once the HA is taken care of. The lawnmower blennie will NOT be going in the 65g Seahorse tank, it would be in the 75g reef tank. I think you underestimate the amount of HA in the 75g tank. Think 80% coverage. It's been 2 days and they have only cleared a patch the size of a baseball. It will take them awhile.

I now rinse the thawed mysis shrimp EVERY time. I started rinsing it about a month and a half ago. It's before that I started having the problem. I didn't rinse it then. (shame on me)

As for the blue leg hermits, I have the micro hermits and they have never caused a problem. They are smaller then a pea. I only have 20 in the tank. I do have a few large scarlet hermits, but they are in the 75g tank and I would never put them with the seahorses.

My mexican turbos cleared out a very impressive sized clump of red grape macro overnight. I could have killed them I was so mad. All turbos were removed at that time......that's another reason the HA got out of hand. I have now removed what reds I have left to a safe tank untill the HA is gone. The turbos will be removed before the red macros are returned to the seahorse tank. If they would eat the HA as fast as the reds, I'd be estatic. The reds must be sweeter or something. It seems everything eats the red macros. Go figure.

Angie

[pledosophy]

Ok maybe something got missed here, lol. The 75g tank will not be a seahorse tank. It will be a reef tank.

Sorry, the title of the thread and all the comments about seahorse safe hair algae eaters must have confused me. :D

The seahare will clear a path but aren't really a solution unless you have a means of exporting the nutrients. IME

Good Luck