Does anything eat (FW) hair algae?
 

I have patches of hair algae growing in between Lilaeopsis brasiliensis (Brazillian micro-sword, it's sort of like grass). The microsword is pretty delicate and if I try to pinch the algae out I usually end up pulling out clumps of the sword.

Does anything eat hair algae like a champion that could help me out with keeping the swords free of the nuisance hair algae?

So far in the tank I have a farlowella cat, 3 Siamese algae eaters, 2 oto's, various snails that hitchhiked on the plants (ramshorns plus something else) plus Malaysian trumpet snails ... so far none of these guys seem to be really going at the stuff I've got growing in there ..

I kind of suspect the ultimate answer is still careful manual removal, but I'm wondering what else I could try. What about algae eating shrimp?

Deleted because I'm an idiot!

A little bit of research tells me.....Rosy Barbs, Bristlenose Catfish and Ramshorn Snails.

Tony I'm going through the same problem with my planted tank and I getting to my wits end I didn't know a FW tank could be such a PITA. Mine seems to have stated growing on tiger val and just spread everywhere and the CO2 think helps it. I am going to try Excel this week it is supposed to take away from the algae and give to plants from what Henry at natures corner tells me but be careful it can kill off a tank quick DO NOT OVERDOSE
....oh a scavenger a tang with not survive to long in a freshwater :lol:

I've read acticles that mentioned that Rosy barbs were good for hair algea. Also Amano and other types of algea shrimp are good at removing it, as, long as you don't have anything in the tank that will eat them.

I should have mentioned in the post itself that this is about a freshwater tank, sorry about that Scavenger!

Hair algae in a SW tank seems easy, I have urchins, an abalone, and a rabbit who work at it until it's gone, but yeah, trying to keep a FW tank looking nice and clean has always been something of a challenge for me. I'm not currently dosing CO2 yet as the tank is fairly new (a month or so set up now), and I'm only pushing 2wpg (65g, and lighting is 2x65w PC). I'm a little concerned that the lighting is not enough for the plants I want to grow but I'm thinking it may be better to let the tank settle in before upgrading.

I'm learning lots as I go with this one so it's definitely fun at the moment, I just don't want the messy algaes to gain a foothold like they did in my old FW tank.:redface:

Dale, eventually I'm going to be moving 2 medium sized clown loaches into this tank (I need some more ground cover in the tank before I can move them over, they're coming from a seriously overgrown 30g and I think they'll be nervous because there isn't hidey holes in there to the same degree their current tank has). Are clown loaches gonna go after the amano shrimp if I get some of those?

That's interesting about rosy barbs. I didn't know that at all. By coincidence I had been considering at some point getting some of those anyhow just because I thought they were pretty. :)

Not exactly the most sought after fw fish, but your everyday feeder goldfish will take care of it. I had an Asian Leaf fish for a while and it only ate small feeders. One day it just died. A few feeders survived and they ate every bit of hair algae in my tank in a couple of days-to the point where it never came back. By far the best substrate cleaners I've seen. If you don't like them in your tank, you could simply give them back to your lfs when the algae's gone. You just have to watch that the don't get a taste for your more delicate plants.
Shaun.

Black mollies work great on hair algae. You can also acclimate them to salt water and then they munch out on all the algae in your sw tank. I used 2 b mollies in my 20 gal sw tank as my cycle was ending and never fed them and they kept my algae outbreak in check. I've been thinking of using them in a Qtank and switching them back and forth between qtank and fw tank.
Kevin

Ameca Splendens work AWESOME!