Promoting brown algae growth

A

Austintatious

Yes I know it sounds silly but my lawnmower blenny is starving to death.. there is NO WAY to catch him.

I need to get brown algae to start growing again in my tank.. It stopped growing about 3 weeks ago and about the same time I started to have a green hair algae breakout. I don't know what has prompted this but I dont want my blenny to die... He is probably my favorite fish due to his personality. I have been overfeeding in an attempt to get soem to grow but he is still thin as a rail... I don't think he has but about a week if I dont make something happen.

any suggestions ?
 
@bimmerzs wrote:
Are you sure it doesn't have some kind of internal parasite? Cheers said:
No, not sure...I can visually tell that non of the brown algae he has been surviving on for the last year is growing. Also no other fishes are affected...

I will try a clip of Nori and see if he will eat it.
Click to expand...
 
@Austintatious wrote:
[I]@bimmerzs wrote:[/I][quote="Are you sure it doesn't have some kind of internal parasite? Cheers said:
No, not sure...I can visually tell that non of the brown algae he has been surviving on for the last year is growing. Also no other fishes are affected...

I will try a clip of Nori and see if he will eat it."]

See if he has stringy white poop...I don't visually see anything that mine scrapes off the rock's and he's really fat.

Cheers,
Click to expand...
 
My lawnmower blenny will eat just about anything I put in there, including flakes. Have you tried any other seaweek or regular fish foods?
 
Pound for pound, in marine aquaria, Lawnmower Blennies are arguably the best consumers of filamentous algae.

Because of their very high metabolism, they’re also one of the first herbivores to starve to death in a tank devoid of an edible algae source.

mtraylor gave the exact same advice I would have for a starving lawnmower. Clip Nori in your tank right away. This alone can fulfill the dietary needs of your blenny for years to come.

If your lawnmower isn’t already used to feeding upon Nori you might should try placing it in a location where the blenny will be more likely to stumble upon it and begin feeding. Depending on how forgone into emaciation, sometimes they won’t discover this food source quick enough to avoid death. I would suggest, until your blenny learns to adopt this as a new primary food source, clip a liberal amount the first few times so that it waves in the current and is more likely to catch the blenny’s eye.

Lawnmower blennies should be allowed to graze upon algae all day long. When faced with starvation they’ll eat most anything but only a constant supply of algae can satisfy their daily dietary requirements.
 
I totally agree...but find it very strange that a year old tank wouldn't be able to sustain a lawnmower blenny.

Cheers
 
Hopefully your blenny will find the Nori soon. My blenny will only eat algae from the rock and glass and Nori from the clip. He totally ignores everything else.
 
Thanks everyone... My tank atm has a large amount of green hair algae... IDK if a lawnmower blenny will eat this or not... I find this very strange that he suddenly stopped eating. For the last year he has been an absolute PIG.

As he got skinny I began to feed 1 cube of Emerald gold frozen food, some sinking pellets, Cube of tubifex worms and a cube of Soriuina brine shrimp all seasoned with Garlic extreem... also I have put in several sheets of nori and he still has not eaten.

He may be too far gone... I will continue to put in nori in the hopes he will find and eat it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top