Hair algae

[Fishnerd360]

I have lots of hair algae in my planted 2 gallon probably due to my bright light. I don' t want to toss it out as there are these small crustaceans living in it and I already killed a lot of them by accident already and I don't want to kill more. What would eat hair algae?
I was thinking about getting 2 Florida flag tails in there to eat the algae in another tank, by scoping up the algae in dumping it in my quarantine tank, and later moving the flag tails to be 45 gallon. Or should I get ghost shrimps to eat it, if so how many.
Any suggestions?

 

[Matteus]

Siamensis eat hair algae but they will only graze on it. AFAIK there isn’t much else that eats it. But any time you get a fish to do a cleaning job, you are going to be disappointed. They don’t do what we want or expect them to do 98% of the time.

Just saying

 

[duanes]

Mollies tend to eat hair algae, and might be suited to a 45 gallon.
If you have any larger tanks, many cichlids eat hair algae.
I use a sump as an algae scrubber that gets choked in hair algae, and about every other day remove a clump of the algae and feed it to me Andinoacara, they will eat a clump the size of a baseball in a day.

other cichlids like Cinelichthys pearsei, and bocourti are consummate algae eaters, as are Etroplus suratensus,but need giant tanks.

below video go suratensus eating dandelions (they do the same to hair algae.
Etroplus eating dandilions

 

[Matteus]

Mollies tend to eat hair algae, and might be suited to a 45 gallon.
If you have any larger tanks, many cichlids eat hair algae.
I use a sump as an algae scrubber that gets choked in hair algae, and about every other day remove a clump of the algae and feed it to me Andinoacara, they will eat a clump the size of a baseball in a day.
View attachment 1375688
other cichlids like Cinelichthys pearsei, and bocourti are consummate algae eaters, as are Etroplus suratensus,but need giant tanks.

below video go suratensus eating dandelions (they do the same to hair algae.
Etroplus eating dandilions

That is neat to find out. Thanks for the lesson Sir.

 

[Fishnerd360]

Mollies tend to eat hair algae, and might be suited to a 45 gallon.
If you have any larger tanks, many cichlids eat hair algae.
I use a sump as an algae scrubber that gets choked in hair algae, and about every other day remove a clump of the algae and feed it to me Andinoacara, they will eat a clump the size of a baseball in a day.
View attachment 1375688
other cichlids like Cinelichthys pearsei, and bocourti are consummate algae eaters, as are Etroplus suratensus,but need giant tanks.

below video go suratensus eating dandelions (they do the same to hair algae.
Etroplus eating dandilions

I never knew that cichlids would eat it. I had keyhole cichlids once, and there was hair algae, I think I saw them eating it too.
But aren't mollies brackish water fish?

 

[duanes]

Mollies can live in brackish and fresh, depends somewhat on species, and location or line bred variants.
Contrary to popular thought, most cichlids are "not" carnivores, but omnivores and graze on plenty of algae as a bulk of their diet, beside being good nutrition it provides the fiber needed to push stuff thru the gut.
I believe many of the bloating cichlids we see, is that too many aquarists think Tilapia fillets and the like are a good diet for their cichlids, which then omits important nutrients and fiber.

 

[Fishnerd360]

I have snails in my 2 gallon with the hair algae, if I take out the hair algae and see if my cichlids, siamese algae eaters, and maybe mollies or Florida flagtails is I get either, will eat it. Do you think any possible snail in the hair algae will also get eaten. I don't want pond snails in my 45 gallon.
My stock for my 45 gallon right now is 1 male EBA, 1 female jack dempsey(might move is gets to big and too aggressive), 1 jurupari eartheater, pair of panda angelfish(will get moved to their own tank so I can move my koi angelfish back), 1 female regani dwarf pike cichlid, 4 small-medium siamese algae eaters, 1 pictus catfish, 1 true vittata pleco, 1 zig-zag eel, and 3 Batasio fluviatilis.

 

[Fishnerd360]

And a upside down catfish