Recipe for hair algae

[ACBlinky]

Yep, that's right, I want to encourage the growth of hair algae. I bought a skinny blenny and want to grow him a nice buffet, just wondering if anyone has any tips.

I use my 5.5g as a holding tank for rubble used frag Xenia, shrooms and zoas. The tank hasn't had a light (didn't want algae to grow on the rubble), but it does have a little HOB filter for circulation. I just added a light (2x 15W spiral compact fluorescent bulbs) that I plan to leave on 24/7, and a pinch of hair algae from my 21g -- there was only a TINY bit of growth in the tank, I took what I could to seed the rubble. I added some of the fertilizers I use for my FW planted tanks (trace elements, KNO3, KH2PO4) to raise iron, nitrates and phosphates...

So other than wishing I didn't have hair algae, which has caused blooms in my tanks in the past, lol, is there anything else I can do to encourage the rapid growth of microalgae for my blenny?

[outy]

if you overfeed those little monsters [man i love em lol] the will grow huge in no time flat. mine got up to 3"-4" from 1" in a year.

i know mine liked mowing it more then eating it lol

glad to see this one found a good home :)

[ACBlinky]

Thanks outy :D
Just cross your fingers for the little guy, he's mighty skinny. I'm going to do my best, I've got three different kinds of dried seaweed that I feed the angels, Caulerpa verticillata in the 21g (already offered him a rock covered in this), algae wafers for my FW plecos, and I'll see what funky green stuff I can cultivate in the 5.5g for him. I'm also not going to clean the back or sides of the tank, so if film algae is what he's into, he better get ready for a feast, lol.

[atty]

get as many hair algae spors as possible. What you want to do is brake up the algae as much as possible so the algae has a large surface area.
hope that helps

[Waxxiemann]

Mine LOVES spectrum pellets as well as blood worms try those.

What kind of blenny is it?

[kass03]

Reminds me of the days I used to buy HA covered rock to feed my tangs lol back then alot of the LFS had HA on their rock and my tangs would clean it off in a day or 2.
I read your other blenny thread. Cute guy hope he makes it.

You might wanna try feeding the rubble with flakes to get some phosphate in there lol.
Oh and the lower spectrum bulbs seem to grow more algae also.

kass

[Peter Eichler]

What species of blenny is it?