The Puffer Forum

Hey guys,

I recently had a pretty large brown algae bloom, is covering a big portion of the rear glass and the substrate. I have a yellow tang and porcupine puffer together. The yellow tang grazes throughout the day but other than cleaning the glass and substrate theres no way I have been able to keep the brown algae tamed.

I read that it'll often go away as quickly as it came, after a couple months, as long as I minimize nutrients via water changes but I check my lfs and they had these Cerith Snails which they claim are the best cleanup crew for brown algae, and if available will exclusively eat brown algae.

Should I take home a handful of them? They are about 1 inch long and my porcupine puffer is still quite young at under 3 inches, will he eat or harass them? Does it just depend on wether they fit in his mouth. I tried feeding the puffer snails once but they were too big for his mouth and he just ignored them (after staring them down for a good few minutes none the less).

Thanks, also any advice on this brown algae is appreciated!

Worst thing that could happen is the puffer gets a good meal of them.

An expensive meal no less. At 3 bucks a pop.

I spend less on food for myself

Sigh..

I'm gunna give it a shot but see if they'll pick out the larger ones of the group.

Btw have you ever used these snails before? Do they get the job done?

Your problem is diatoms:
library/water-filtration/brownalgaediatoms/

The back glass of my SW tanks are covered with pink coraline algae. I keep a Magna-float on the side of every tank, to wipe the front of my tanks of this. Snails don't do a good enough job. Can't be helped in SW, IMO.

So as long as I use my magna-float more diligently eventually the pink coraline algae will overtake the diatoms?

I'll keep doing that and try to introduce some snails anyways, can't be any harm done there. We'll see how it goes.

Thanks for your help!