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hey guys
thanks for watching last week that was a
lot of fun i think what we're going to
do is
probably
twice or
once a month
we'll hook up like that it'll be a lot
of fun we'll treat it like a question
and answer format
all right today i'm going to talk to you
about four algae eaters that in my
experience
do certain things
and those four are going to be the
yellow tang
the lawnmower blenny
the tuxedo urchin and the infamous
hermit crabs so let's get into it
the lawnmower blenny is a really cool
fish but it's not going to eat hair
algae so let's take a look at what
that's doing in my 20 gallon mushroom
tank
okay i thought i'd start out with the
lawnmower blenny this is a cool guy also
known as the selfin
blennier rock skipper this blenny will
eat micro algae and what i do is i leave
the glass alone
for as long as i can deal with it and
let him eat off the glass he'll eat off
the rocks and he'll eat off the bottom
they say because it's a micro algae
eater that it requires a lot of algae so
you want to keep this in 30 and above
however if you let your tank grow as i
said the glass a little bit your rocks
he can be kept in a 20 gallon tank and
he's also taking food that i feed he's
eating pellet food and he's also eating
brine shrimp and spirulina brine shrimp
it took him about two or three days to
start eating food that i was feeding him
he was quite skinny when he first came
in but now he's got a nice size gut and
i know he's getting enough food
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when i first got him he was quite shy
but now he's out and i can see him more
and i can see him doing his job he's
always pecking on the glass or on the
rocks it also likes to hide in caves and
crevices in the tank so you wanna have
live rock with lots of little caves and
nooks and crannies where he can hide in
this is the first time i've had a tuxedo
urchin and i expected it to just chow
down on everything and it really didn't
so let's talk about what i'm seeing the
tuxedo doing
in my 10 gallon tank and i also have one
in the 75 gallon i have to say that the
tuxedo urchin is an amazing creature
it's beautiful in color
it's very unique in how it moves around
the tank if you look at it's got some
tentacles
that come off it and that helps it move
around the tank especially on the glass
they're almost like suction cups
and it's also super colorful this is
considered a red tuxedo urchin
you can see the mouth that's the white
section in the center there
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it slowly moves around the tank on the
glass and it'll move across the rocks
and on the way it collects all sorts of
stuff and as you can see here it's
collected some macro algae
on its back and now the macro algae is
actually starting to grow
and i've also seen it to pick up live
hermit crabs on the way and this is what
it does to the rocks it really
eats down to the rock surface it'll take
up some of your coraline which is
not the greatest thing but i don't have
too much on the rocks the way i see the
tuxedo urchin is more of a preventative
measure to algae from growing on the
rocks because it's not going to allow
anything to grow it removes all of it
right down to the base rock
because of the size of the tank i've put
in supplemental feeding as you can see
here i've rubber banded some nori to a
piece of rock and it'll find it within a
few hours and it'll climb on it and
it'll just sit there and devour all the
nori on the rock
sometimes before the urchin can make its
way to the rock the hermit crabs can
climb on and take a little off but not
much
here's a close-up of those tentacles
connected to the glass and this is the
way it moves around the glass especially
when it's in the corners
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so i really like the tuxedo urchin it's
not going to remove large macro algae
like i thought it was but it keeps your
rocks really clean so it's very good for
preventative as i said before it's
beautiful to look at and really
interesting so this is a keeper for me
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a few videos ago i added hermit crabs
and i got quite a few responses
from viewers because i added so many but
in my experience if you want to get rid
of hair algae
you need a lot of hermit crabs to do the
job and the hair algae can't be real
long
sometimes manually removing is the only
way to go to really quicken up your
algae removal especially the hair algae
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in my opinion hermit crabs are the best
method for removing hair algae you just
have to encourage them and help them
along by removing some of the longer
strands
years ago i would get my hermits from a
place called garf
geothermal research foundation
in idaho
and they were experimenting all the time
with hermits and how to get them to eat
hair algae
you need to have patience too i fought
hair algae off in my tanks in the past
for three to six months
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a lot of us have preconceived notions of
tangs especially the yellow tang
in my experience the yellow tang is an
algae eater obviously but it's not the
long hair algae eater that some say it
is so let's take a look at the yellow
tang
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all right well you gotta love the yellow
tang it's a really beautiful fish
the yellow color that's growing on mine
is just perfect i've kept yellow tangs
over the years and one thing i have
learned is that they're not an overly
aggressive algae eater they pick a
little bit here and there
and my guess is in the wild if you had a
large school of yellow tangs then
obviously they'll make a dent in
algae but the algae that i see it eating
is just little bits and pieces it'll
nibble at the hair algae here and there
and it could be
that because i'm feeding a large amount
of nori
each day that the tang is not more
ravenous in the tank but i have skipped
days with the nori and i haven't noticed
the tang to be any more hungry or see it
doing any more eating of any kind of
hair algae
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in my opinion it's more important that
the tang is healthy so supplemental
feeding with nori
soaked in silicon will definitely keep
it healthy it may affect how much algae
it eats in your tank but in my opinion
it's much better to have a healthy fish
than to test whether it's going to eat
enough algae or not although the tang is
a herbivore it is eating meaty foods
like brine shrimp with spirulina and
some mixed foods that i put in leave a
comment if you'd like if you have a
yellow tang and you see it eating algae
more than what i'm talking about here
i'd like to hear from you
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the lawn mower blenny is a really cool
did i say blunty or blenny the lawnmower
blend however it's not going to eat
tuxedo urchin