Reef nutrition

Lawnmower blennie QT

Scarbird

Scarbird

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I just got a small lawnmower blenny to try and rid my 72 bowfront of nuisance hair algae.
He is in a 20 gallon tank connected to the return mainfold, so no truly a quarantine. I can isolate this tank however if needed. The system reactors, GFO and carbon operate from and to this tank.
Question is. How do I feed this guy to make him happy in quarantine and fatten him up while I make sure he has no pests?
 
I would feed it meaty foods initially, mysis or any of Reef Nutrition's products, see if you can get some flake foods that has algae as a main (green flakes like Formula one) in there too.

Also don't be too grief stricken if you don't notice any dent in the hair algae in the tank. IIRC Lawnmower blennies are very poorly named, they will eat some algae but usually not the ones that we hope they will.

Murphy's law of fish, if there's a 50/50 chance he'll do it, they will do what you don't want it to do, whether it's eating a particular type of algae or whether or not it'll pick at a particular coral :D
 
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sfsuphysics said:
I would feed it meaty foods initially, mysis or any of Reef Nutrition's products, see if you can get some flake foods in there too.

Also don't be too grief stricken if you don't notice any dent in the hair algae in the tank. IIRC Lawnmower blennies are very poorly named, they will eat some algae but usually not the ones that we hope they will.
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Darn,
I have been fighting this hair algae problem and it is kicking my a#$%@.
Water changes, snails, hermit crabs, no help. Hope this guy is hungry!! Corals and fish are doing great, I just hate looking at the stuff. My toothbrush is tired of it too!
 
It may or may not eat hair algae. It has the scraping mouth mechanism to go to town against rocks, but whether or not it actually affects it is a bit disputable.

Some people have had foxface fish that wouldn't even dent their algae, me if I put in an algae covered rock (big sucker too) from another tank, it will be completely bare the next morning. He also eats like a pig everything else I feed the tank. So my advice keep him well fed, and he'll just graze on everything :D
 
Since the fish is not really isolated from the main tank, why not put him, her, it into the DT?

Good luck with the HA. I have a Foxface going into my tank tonight to deal w/ the HA. Crossing my fingers it's a FF with an appetite like Mike's!
 
Quarantine connected to your display tank kinda defeats the purpose of the quarantine. If the blenny has ich or flukes (or any other disease) then it's already probably spread to the DT. At this point, you might as well put him in the DT and hope for the best.

For the hair algae, I'd run GFO (if you aren't already) and swap it out every few days until the hair algae starts to die back. Also, you could try peroxide dosing.
 
HiFidelity said:
mine doesn't touch the hair algae, it eats all meaty foods I put in the tank o_O
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My lawnmower eats nothing but algae, isn't even interested in nori. I have to swap rocks from the fuge so he has food other than eating the glass.

My wife starry blenny won't even touch algae but chases pellets and mysis any time I feed them.
 
My lawnmower blenny barely eats hair algae either. The black cowrie on the other hand is a grazing machine. He, unfortunately, will also eat corals if he is super hungry.
 
hey you have a cowrie too, I just threw one in my tank about a week and a half ago and aside from knocking things around, over the past few days the hair algae has been looking more & more mangled, I wonder now if it is the cowrie destroying the hair algae!
 
Thanks for the feedback everyone. I have been thinking about throwing him in for the same obvious reasons. Tonight he ate some formula 2 pellets. I guess tomorrow I'll put him in. Forgive my ignorance...
What is a cowrie?
 
Bluprntguy said:
Quarantine connected to your display tank kinda defeats the purpose of the quarantine. If the blenny has ich or flukes (or any other disease) then it's already probably spread to the DT. At this point, you might as well put him in the DT and hope for the best.

For the hair algae, I'd run GFO (if you aren't already) and swap it out every few days until the hair algae starts to die back. Also, you could try peroxide dosing.
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You are right, quarantine is probably not the best description. "Observation room" may serve better to describe the tank.
I am running GFO and based on Coral Reefers thread, have begun to change weekly. It is apparently not possible to determine when the GFO is exhausted. Do you recommend more frequent replacements?
 
Scarbird said:
You are right, quarantine is probably not the best description. "Observation room" may serve better to describe the tank.
I am running GFO and based on Coral Reefers thread, have begun to change weekly. It is apparently not possible to determine when the GFO is exhausted. Do you recommend more frequent replacements?
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Yeah, it's impossible to tell when GFO is exhausted, you kind of just have to guess. When I had a green hair algae outbreak I swapped my GFO out every two or three days. It's easy to do on a nano though because a tablespoon or two of GFO doesn't cost much. I guess it's up to you as to how quickly you want to try to eliminate the problem. Weekly sounds like a good compromise.
 
I just put the little fella in. He seemed happy enough in his "observation room".
He ate the formula two pellets I provided him yesterday.
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Mine would eat some hair algae but not devour it. Mostly waited for the good stuff at night and joined in with the other fish
 
Interesting. Much like humans in a way. A person with mucho tends to be more choosy than a person with fewer choices. But, then, we cannot starve our fishes to make em eat algae can we?
I'm thinking of investing in lots of GFO...:mad:
 
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