Loaches Online Forum

As most people do have issues with hair algae i want to know what kinds of fish will get rid of it, I have....

The pretty fish
8 Clownloaches ... Of course!!!
4 bala sharks
3 pearl gouramis
THE CLEANING CREW
4 otocinclus
2 hillsteam loaches
1 bullhead pleco (or atleast i think he's called that, it's a very small pleco)

So what else could i have, to get rid of the hair algae? I was thinking of Gold or Rosie barbs, ARE there better fish than those because thats what im going to get if there isn't. So what would you recomend??????

Thanks.

Clown Plecos are excellent algae eaters though they also require bogwood in their diet. I'd say mine spend about half their time eating algae and half their time eating wood. They are techmically a pekolita so they never get bigger than 4 inches, and man can these little plecos eat!

Bogwood, is that some kind of driftwood because if so then i can probably get some of those clown plecos. My driftwood is very dense and heavy, i'm not sure where it originated from.

Yeah bogwood is the dark heavy driftwood that sinks immediately.

There are not many fish that eat hair algae. The SAE, Crossecheilus siamensis does when it is young, as does the american flag fish.
Cherry shrimp and to a lesser degree Amano shrimp will eat it also.

most shrimp will vanish if left in a loach tank...
my large SAE died after my heater was stuck on about a 1/2 a monrth ago and boom--now I have hair algae issues.
Luckly I picked up 4 young ones about 2 months ago so I trapped 2 SAE and transfered them to that planted tank.
Yes Cherry barbs eat hair algae too. Very active as well.
I am currently debating what dither fish to get.
Rainbows, tiger and cherry barbs, man I just can't decide.

I've got Amano shrimp in three of my loach tanks with no problem. I tend to think that you'd need a lot of them to make a dramatic difference with hair algae, though. Martin keeps Cherry shrimps with loaches, I believe. And I have kept Ghost shrimp with loaches as well, but they can get larger and nippy with long finned dither fish.

I had some ghost shrimp that got put in a fish order and in the tank with sids and a false horseface loach they vanished.
"and like that they were gone"

above I ment rosy barbs not cherrys. Cherrys eat hair algae but not like rosys...of course YMMV.

My first response would have been exactly what Jim Powers said. That response comes from our planted tank keeping background. But also I want to add, your question asks for a solution to the symptom, as apposed to a solution to your problem. If you have an unplanted tank, then just turn the lights off. And mechanically and chemically clean the decoration in a bucket. If you have a plant tank, and if this is a new tank then it will settle. If the plant tank is a little older, then you have a nutrient imbalance. Here is my article regarding nutrient control for Algae control. Also, if this is black brush algae, then I agree with the above SAE/Barb/flag fish/amino shrimp solution. If it is just plain green hair algae, there’s a lot of other algae eaters to help also.

http://home.ptd.net/~jdietsch/algae.html

JD

I have cherries and amanos both in with loaches and there is no problem.

THanks but i got some rosy barbs and it did the trick but ill keep everything you guys said in mind.