[j_man]

How do you keep one alive after you run out of algea?

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by j_man

How do you keep one alive after you run out of algea?

You don't.

They are reported to eat Bryopsis according to several anecdotal reports from hobbyists on the reefkeeping bulletin boards. The scientific literature credits them with eating certain species of Caulerpa. They don't exactly eat it. They suck out the internal juice, causing the algae to die.

They cannot (and will not) eat any algae based foods that you might add to the tank. It has to be living algae and it has to be something that they are adapted to eat. They are specialized feeders but it seems that they do eat more than one species of algae. The only alga that I have heard of them eating in hobbyists' reef aquaria is Bryopsis. There is also some speculation that some variants of this species do not eat the same algae as other variants, that's assuming that the guy making this speculation knows what he's talking about and that there actually are variants within the species. Anyway, he wrote that in his book about ten years ago and a lot of people respect his opinions.

[j_man]

thanx