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Is a scotter blenny my only option?


Cain

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I am recently having porblems controlling nuisance algae. I was told a scotter blenny is a good way of controlling algae, and i am happy to buy one, as i do not want a tang, yet. Does anyone know anything about scotter blennies?

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I used to have 2 of them. A male and a female. I cannot say that I think they had any effect on the algea. I think they eat mainly pods. I had a lawn mower blenny and he ate the crap out of algea

The scooters are very entertaining to watch though. the male puts on quite the show for the female.

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As aggiereefer said they dont eat algae, they eat pods and after a while training mine now eats brine shrimp. Dont get suckered into the myth they eat algae. I would say they're a little more advanced so dont add one until your tank is established.

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yea scooters eat pods, lawn mowers eat algae and nudi branches eat a lot, but scooters need a stable system so they can eat pods i never feed me manderin or scooter and they are both really fat but they ae in a older tank

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perhaps instead of looking for a solution to your problem, you should look for the source. once you fix that you won't have any more nuisance algae ;)

 

and before anybody suggests it, lettuce nudibranches won't eat your hair algae either, they only eat bryopsis.

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I have a scooter, and a lawnmower, the scooter is fun to watch, the lawnmower isn't mowing anything though, he just hides all the time...that bastard needs to get to work!

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I completely agree with what Vic said. Could be water source, lighting or any number of problems. They will just continue and possibly get worse if the cause isn't found and corrected.

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Undertheradar

Sometimes algae problems work themselves out. How old it the tank...if it's 6-9months old, I would just wait it out...unless it stays for more than a month. Another source (and a biggie IME) is the lighting. yellow or old bulbs, or unbalanced lighting (not enough actinic) gives an unfair advantage to algae as corals need the actinic range to photosynthetically break down waste. Take this away, and corals will slow their consumption...giving the advantage, as well as all the built up extra nutrients, to algae that doesnt need as complete a spectrum.

 

Other than that, depending on the algae you have, I can suggest the right critters:

For hair algae: emerald mithrax crab, bicolor or lawnmower blenny, hermit crabs

For algae on the glass: Astrae snails

For bubble algae: emerald crab again

For cyano: Urchins. Bar none. I had an outbreak in my fuge of cyano (it doesnt have balanced lighting) and red algae, and nothing would touch it...until I put a tuxedo urchin in there. It seems they pick one rock at a time...and then spend a whole day doing a deep cleaning. And I mean deep! The rock was bare when it was finished and it had been overgrown with hair algae and cyano on the hair! (even cleaned around the mushroom corals and feather dusters w/o a hitch) Algae has yet to grow back on that rock many weeks later. Next day, Groundskeeper Willie was on to another rock...making it sparkle like Mr. Clean (hey, thats another good name for those round little buggers). And they look so cool...all red spines with bright blue stripes. He keeps my fuge in A1 shape. Doesnt touch the corals, other inverts, or macro. A great cleaner.

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there is a downside to urchins, that i feel needs to be added to that. they don't just eat your nuisance algae, they also eat all your coraline algae. on top of that, they can most definitely be bulldozers, especially in small tanks.

 

on a good note, they are very good at cleaning, and they're fun to watch.

 

 

i think some good questions to ask yourself are....

1) is there anything that is not accounted for in your tank right now? snails, fish, maybe a coral that passed away and hasn't been removed?

 

2) how old are your light bulbs?

 

3) how much water do you change per week (or month with a larger tank)

 

4) do you have a skimmer running, and if so, could it easily handle a tank twice the size of your own?

 

Nuisance algae is fueled by excess nutrients in the water. so that means, if you are overfeeding, have had a fish die and couldn't find the body, aren't doing diligent water changes, your snail population has been mysteriously declining, etc. etc. any of those could be fueling the algae.

 

thats the problem with nano tanks, it doesn't take much to throw off the balance.

 

HTH, good luck.

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I would love to know who responded Excellent and Good in this poll. Someone who knows nothing about Scooter Blennies or their needs.

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Originally posted by Cain

I am recently having porblems controlling nuisance algae. I was told a scotter blenny is a good way of controlling algae, and i am happy to buy one, as i do not want a tang, yet. Does anyone know anything about scotter blennies?

 

BTW it is Scooter, not scotter.

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NanoReefTexas

Keeping a scooter poses many of the same problems as keeping a mandarin dragonet, they're in the same family I think, and I know mandarins are often mislabled as gobies, maybe it's the same with scooter "blennies". If this is the case, scooters wouldn;t make good nano fish options. I'm no expert, just trying to help.

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