Best Algae eating fish?

[PuffersKick]

I've got a 225 FOWLR.

What is the best "algae eating" fish to help me out with the green growth on my rocks and glass? It's hard b/c I can't get any crabs or snails with my fish (they would be dinner).

I have a foxface and he nibbles on some, but not much.
It needs to be pretty hardy too b/c I've got 2 puffers, 2 triggers, 2 lions, lunare wrasse, and foxface.

Some sort of Tang perhaps? Something else? Or will nothing eat the green algae?

[stykthyn]

nothing grazes better than a moorish idle, but prolly no the best for an aggressive tank. purple tang maybe??

[stykthyn]

moorish idle

damn, I cant belive I spelled that::smack forhead::
idol,, there we go, much better

[PuffersKick]

I don't think a moorish idol would be a good fit for my tank. I'm thinking some sort of Tang would be better. However I don't like the Kole Tang. Thinking maybe a yellow or purple tang?

[Monkeyfish]

I've got a yellow tang. He won't touch any of the 3 calurpas or the chaeto in my display tank; doesn't like Sea Veggies or Seaweed Selects. Idiot fish will only eat Omega Super Veggie flakes and meaty leftovers from the trigger's dinner.

[LRS078]

Get the biggest lawn mower blenny you can find. I've seen 5-6" specimens locally for around $40-50. No invert has ever survived my golden puffer but the 5" LMB seems to be ignored while helping with the algae. He will not eliminate it, but will make cleaning less frequent and not as bad.... Worth it if you can find one.

[AIMFish]

Adding another fish will just increase the amount of waste production you already have in your tank, feeding the algae you already have even more. Remove as much as you can manually and try to get some macro growing in there ;) You could also try to cut back on the feeding, buy a bigger skimmer, and/or do more water changes! Not the answer you were looking for but I seriously doubt one fish will make that much of a differance in algae control. Starve the algae, don't try to consume it and indirectly feed it :p

[LRS078]

Hehe, the waste that the little blenny produces is quite negligible versus say the average dump my golden puffer takes. Hell, the golden eats nearly the mass of the LMB every two days. Not to mention the rest of the tankmates!

For the 1% hit to bioload I'll take visible algae eating marks/reduction over rocks and areas of the tank I can't get to easily.... Perhaps someone here has heard of the term "return on investment"? The tank already is very heavily skimmed/filtered/etc. I can skim out easily what the fish excrete, its harder to remove algae from the hard surfaces of the tank. My water parameters don't begin to degrade for 3-4 weeks (per 2x per week testkit use w' no water changes) and I do 20% water changes every other week.

If I scrub the easy to get to areas it forces the blenny to chow down on the spots I can't get to....

Yes, if I wanted to mess with a fuge that would help but just isn't worth it for now.

I will NEVER starve my fish to slow algae growth. It is a fish tank first and foremost. C'mon, are you THAT bothered by algae as to compromise the very reason you have the tank?