Yellow Tang eating Green Hair Algae

Not sure if they always do this, not saying that this always happens, but I picked up a yellow tang yesterday and by the evening he was eating green hair algae everywhere in my tank!

of course this is great, because I've been waiting for my newly added CUC plus my cheato in my fuge to take care of it before adding corals, but this guy is chowing down like a cow. i actually saw a stand get 'slurped' into his mouth lol

anyways, i had never heard of them doing this, but I wanted to get anyone's input on this. Of course this is nice for me, but is it okay for him to be eating it all? is this normal?

thanks!

 

Most do, and some do not. Congradulations on your new fish.;D

 

Totally normal. They are often kept in live rock tanks at the LFS to do just that.

 

turned out to be a very cool solution to the GHA outbreak i had during cycling!

 

congrats you have a keeper there

I have had maybe 3 or 4 of these over the years and did not have a single one that would browse on hair algae

Steve

 

I recently added a powder blue tang and that's all he will eat so far- GHA.

 

That one is a keeper as someone else said! I have a Kole tang that will occasionally pick at it, but if given a choice it will eat anything else. So in between feedings it eats it which seems to be enough to keep the one patch I have at bay.