Pleco for hair type algae?

I am looking for a pleco that might eat the black type hair algae that is growing on my Manzinita branches. Doing some research I found the Flying Fox or Siamese Algae eaters would work, but these would be the perfect snack sized fish for my Midas, so back to looking for a pleco as an answer. I have some bristle nose growing out in another tank but I have heard that this type of algae is not the kind they typically eat. So any suggestions on a pleco?

I dont think Plecos eat that stuff. I actually think it looks cool after a while.

Yeah, I didnt think they did. I wonder if a royal would cut its way through it to get to the Wood?

The royal would probably cut it way through, but then your wood would be gone in the matter of months. Those things eat wood at an insane rate. I used flying foxes to take car of bba (black beard algea) before and they worked great, but like you said, its a spendy snack for your cichlids. And you might have a hard time finding a real flying fox. I had to go to portland to get one because all the shops were advertising the two other fish that look like flying foxes as flying foxes, but they were not.

I think it looks cool to, on the decor. I leave it because its a pain to get rid of and it looks really natural.

The last time that I was at The Wild Side off of Canyon an 112th. They had a 3-4" Flying Fox in their Discus planted tank. It did look nice. Not sure of the price though.

I hate hairy growth on my wood.... wait for it....

Thats what she said?

>_> Sounds like something you'd hear up on cap hill

And now all the woman are doing this.

OK I had my fun

Is this type of algae able to be controlled by cutting back on light? I run my lights from 7:45am to 10:00pm on a timer. I could cut some of the light time down a bit.

Could a change in light color temp cause the growth to bloom more?I recently switched out my T5's to 10000K to get a more white looking light. Now that my tannins are finally under control it looks bleached out so I switched back to the 6700K. I seemed to get the increase with the higher color temp.

I gravel vac regularly to keep down on the waste that feeds the algae, but I have been feeding pretty heavy to get growth on my little fish. So I know this too can add to the issue.

^_^ is it black beard algae? black fluffy tuffs?

well your answer is nerite snails!

mine mow it down in patched but its slowly going away..i had 4 and they were doing an ok job over a few weeks..just added 3 more so we will see how long it takes.

i like leaving my lights on to long..so i don't mind the algae growth..they just keep it in check.

good thing about nerite snails...they don't breed in fresh water...and they are pretty! ..reds with dots..tans with zebra stripes...yellows with horns..black olives..it goes on.


Just an FYI. very few plecos actual eat algae..most of them prefer wood and left over foods..and they poop ALLOT.. dirty dirty fish.

the best algae eating plecos are Bristlnose and otocinclus..but they will not touch stuff like hair algae and bba

I would read up a bit on the difrences between the flaying foxes and there close relitives its been a long time so I can't recall off the top of my head, but it has something to do with there stripe that runs along the lateral line. There are a few "imposters" and most shops don't even know the diffrence. I went to 4 shops that said they had them, and they dident they had the imposters.

As far as snails go, you might have them last a little while with your cichlids, but I believe that your guys wouldent take long to make a quik meal of them.

Good algea eating plecos are always younger then adults, when they learn that you feed the tank they stop messing with algea from what I have seen. Of course the bristlenose are the exception.

Also as stated otos are a great NONpleco for algea control, although I don't think they touch bba. And your fish will eat them.

Nerite snails = happy cichlids Yum, Yum...

I have some bristle nose but they are still way too small. They are growing out in the 120g right now.