Stometella hard to find...how about cerith snails for the hair?

[logicalreef]

Have any of you had any kind of results with the cerith snails for combating hair algae?

 

I, like everyone else, can't locate a stometella to save my life, but ca find ceriths everywhere.

 

Just curious, Thanks.

 

Bryan

[Satchmo]

Bryan, no experience with ceriths. However, for a stomatella alternative... I have several strombus snails that seem to do great on hair algae. I don't have any hair in the display, but I let some grow on the outflow ramp-thing on my Aquaclear (trim it every now and then... it's my nano-algae scrubber). Anyway, The strombuses (strombi?) are always grabbing hold of this flowing mat of hair and taking it for a ride, so they appear to have a fondness for the stuff. Great snails. Full grown, they're only 1cm and they will reproduce, albeit slowly. IPSF sells them in their 9 for $99 deal. Got a single snail as a hitchhiker with some frags from another reefer and they've multiplied well.

[cjm033]

i got a small stomatella as a hitch hicker hes about 2 mm big ive onyl seen him a couple of times but wen i did he was eating a litle bit of algae ,Chris

[technoshaman]

Bryan, mine seem to like film algae / diatoms or crawl through the sand. I have never really had a hair algae outbreak in my main tank but have never seen them work over the little patches that start.

[Dave ESPI]

THey really havent done jack ###### in my tanks except eat diaoms, some green alga, and detritus, and avoid hair as if it was brussel sprouts.

/me hates 'sprouts.

[sjpresley]

If you have a decent LFS that has small tanks or cubicles set up for inverts you should be able to find some Stomatella there (they won't be marked as for sale, but if you ask they'll probably give them to you free or cheap). They come in as hitch hikers on everything, and if their tanks are set up such that there are refuges from predation the stomatella will breed like mad and be all over, but if they keep arrow crabs or shrimp in all the cubicles they'll eat 'em.

[Chromis]

I caught mine spreading sincronized sperm/egg clouds into the current this evening...

 

Anyways, http://www.inlandaquatics.com/ has some on the price list.