Algae crew experiment

[Sherita]

I've had a good bit of aggravation dealing with algae in my frag tank. I like to spot feed, and the two tangs I have are ripping up corals trying to steal from them (they do good at algae control, but are bad about stealing). Sooooooo...........I bought a group of nicely colored mollies (gold, silver, and Dalmatians) and spent a couple weeks slowly acclimating them to saltwater. I finally moved them into the (temporary) frag system a couple days ago. Lets just say I'm impressed. REALLY impressed. They don't bother the corals at all, but the algae is completely gone. Just for giggles, I stuck a rock in there that had bryopsis on it. An hour later, it was picked completely clean. I'm going to be using the mollies for all my frag tank algae control from here on out. Even when I spot feed, they just ignore that and look for their algae flakes.

And I will have two tangs for sale very soon. Because I found something better.

[rrasco]

Good tip. I am beginning to battle algae in my frag tank and wasn't sure how to take it on. I don't want to use GFO and no sump for an ATS or macro.

[Sherita]

I'm all about these mollies. They are fantastic. One of the females had babies today. They are alive and hiding in and around the zoas. I suspect that this will be a self sustaining colony. The tangs are getting evicted soon. They will need to find a new home.

The mollies bother nothing at all. The tangs bother everything. Another thing to think about.......mollies are small, so no worries abouta tank being big enough for a tang. I took about two weeks to acclimate mine over to salt. They did, and are doing, great.

[allan]

What kind of tangs were you running in there?


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[Zack]

That's awesome! I know Ben has some in his 23 gallon and liked them

[Sherita]

A yellow tang and a scopas.

The crashed tank will be back up soon, and I will acclimate another batch of mollies for it.

[Europhyllia]

my mollies liked algea. but not as much as they liked frozen mysis. at feeding time they were in the seahorse station before the seahorses

[Sherita]

Mine have no interest in frozen at all. I'm glad.

[SABOB]

Interested in your Acclimation process,could you provide more details?


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[Sherita]

Absolutely! I had them set up in a 20 with w hob filter. I had an ato setup on the tank, and in the ato I had a hyper saline solution at .45 ppt. Every day, I would take a cup of water out of the tank and allow the ato to replenish it. Obviously, the ato would also take care of daily evaporation. I checked the salinity every couple days until it got close, then daily. I only lost one mollie in the process, and once I had them at the right salinity they moved seamlessly into my frag tank and started mowing algae.

[Europhyllia]

a couple of days ago... ;)

[Sherita]

Honestly, I don't care if they eat the mysis, as long as they don't make the corals mad. The tangs were just too rough. My zoas hate them.