What are good algae eaters?

I have long (1-2") flowing algae that keeps coming back. I'm able to siphon a good amount of it each week, but not all of it, and it comes back by the next week. I have a yellow tang and an emerald crab, but that is it as far as my algae eaters. What other fellows can I add to keep my algae to a minimum?

 

Do you have hair algea?

 

I believe it is beard algae.

 

I thought beard and hair are the same thing.

 

It might be, I just saw two different pictures on an algae site and it looks more like the beard algae picture. Another place said beard algae was a type of hair algae. Mine looks like the top picture and will move with the current.

Beard algae

Grows on plant leaves and is bright green. Individual strands have a very fine texture but it grows in thick patches and looks just like a green beard. It grows up to 4 cm. It cannot be removed mechanically. This does not indicate bad water quality but grows very fast and overtakes the tank, making it a "bad" alga.


Hair algae

Grows in bright green clumps in the gravel, around the base of plants like Echinodorus and around mechanical objects. It has a coarser texture than "beard algae". Beard algae will ripple in the water current, hair algae tends to form matted clumps. Individual strands can get to 5 cm or more. This is easy to remove mechanically by twirling a toothbrush in it. Can be troublesome if left unchecked. This is a popular food supplement for fish among European aquarists.

 

Oh, so they are different. Some snails will eat hair algae, not sure about beard though. You could always try getting some snails to see if they eat it, if they don't eat it then there is no harm done as long as you have some other algae for them to eat.

 

I had green hair like algae as well as green colored rock. Mine looked like the beard algae
Until I got 3 Mexican Turbos , now it is all gone and rock is a nice purple again.

I have a few others, but the mexican turbos are amazing.


\Cheers

 

The 2 best things you could get in my opinion are # 1 TOP CROWN SNAILS Awesome!!! brown algae Green algae cyano no problem for these snails. # 2 I have 2 little urchins they are mostly white with some green on the inner area, short spines and they do carry some shells and such on thier backs for camo I do not know the name on these guys but they are fantastic algae eaters. I have 24 top crowns 20 Turbos 2 urchins and 24 scarlet reef hermits and my tank has never looked so good you will be amazed.

 

Here is the thing though ..... if you are having that much algae I would start to look at the cause while you are looking for something to eat it Phosphates? Too much Food? RO Water? Silicates? Nitrates ? a good Skimmer? Etc.

 

My snail population could definitely use a boost so I'll try that. I do have a couple urchins already. And yeah, I may be overfeeding a bit...:-/
That should be a good start though.
Thanks!