这practice of adding herbivorous fish and/or invertebrate species to marine aquariums for the purpose of nuisance algae control is quite commonplace. Hence the popularity of those herbivore packages known in hobby parlance as “cleanup crews,” or CUCs. But almost as common is the experience of adding a herbivorous species or CUC to eradicate algae only to discover that it doesn’t quite live up to expectation. Why does this sometimes happen? Here are a few possibilities:
这alga isn’t on the menu
We like to think that herbivores will feast on any and all algae put in front of them, but most are more discerning than that. For example, many herbivorous fish and inverts may do a great job of grazing diatoms and algal films but then completely ignore the forms of most concern to hobbyists, such as those tough, unsightly strands or clumps of hair-type algae.
In fact, my experience with marine herbivores in general is that few will actually outright consume growths ofhair algae。这Turbo和Astraeaspp。CUC中通常包含的蜗牛在这里想到。许多消息来源声称他们会吞噬藻类,但是尽管快速制作了硅藻和藻类电影,但我一直没有这样做的标本。也许我只是运气不好。
太民大h algae
在某些情况下,食草动物实际上正在您的水箱中吃藻类,但没有预期,仅仅是因为它不能跟上藻类生产的速度,例如露西和埃塞尔在巧克力工厂中的遗物。在这种情况下,方程的营养输入侧显然与养分出口一侧失去了平衡,因此您必须通过改进来解决这个问题water changes和protein skimming, reduced feeding, etc. before you can expect to get the algae problem under control.
这specimen is too well fed
If a herbivorous fish fills up on all kinds of prepared foods offered by you, it may show little interest in grazing the algae in your tank whether it happens to be on its natural menu or not. This can present something of a dilemma because on the one hand, you don’t want to risk starving the fish by withholding food, but on the other hand, you would like to encourage its natural grazing behavior.
这best you can do in this scenario is try to cut back incrementally on the amount or frequency of feeding until you strike the right balance. Of course, this may not be feasible depending on the other livestock in your tank. For instance, if you have planktivorous fish in the same tank that demand multiple meals per day, withholding feedings would be counterproductive.
Individual results vary
Sometimes individual specimens of a given species of fish or invertebrate just behave outside the norm, and this can apply to algae-eating tendencies as well. As I mentioned in a prior post, some hobbyists have great successusing毛laccrabs for bubble algae control, while others (myself included) have no such luck. Similarly, one yellow tang (卵巢瘤黄酮) might go right to town on hair algae growing in its tank while another might turn up its long snout at the stuff. Who’s to say why?