what should i get?

[old hermit]

just a quick question i wanted to know before i get an new addition to my tank. should i get a coral banded shrimp or 3 blue leg hermits? i already have 3 red legs. and one more thing what gets rid of hair alge? it is becoming a problem

 

[marek]

I would get a coral banded shrimp, simply because I think it is more amusing. The hermits are small and insignificant and wont provide much interest not to mention will usually die off too soon. For hair and other algae control get mithrax sculptas / emerald crabs... get few like 3 or 4... I have 13 of them in just one of my tanks (35 gal) that used to be infested if all types of algae… its almost pristine now, that should tell the story about them. Plus they are comedic to watch and last much longer than any dwarf hermits will...

 

[old hermit]

what is a mithrax sculptas. ive never heard of that

 

[sinner's girl]

IMO ~coral banded shrimp is cool. They look cool and have more personality then hermits. But make sure it's the only shrimp in your tank or it will enjoy shimp dinners...

 

[marek]

mithrax sculptas is know as the emerald. I'm sorry, i'm really hot about using latin names...

 

[hondo]

to really get rid of hair algae get rid of it's source = nitrates. find out what is feeding the hair algae and once you remove that then the algae will die off and not return. The problem with adding crabs and hermits is they don't always eat hair algae (and sometimes eat your corals and fish). If your tank has alot of hair algae then most likely you have something creating excessive nitrates (bioballs, biowheels, overfeeding,ect) and nothing to process the nitrates (deep sand bed, refugium).