# Anyone else tried rosy barbs for hair algae?



## jamesbaptista (Jul 20, 2012)

I've had some annoying hair algae for a little while and have been trying to brush it off during water changes. I recently picked up some rosy barbs because I saw them while I was buying my roseline sharks and I had read somewhere that they would eat hair algae... and it looks like they do! My hair algae has gone down tremendously. You can actually see them eating off the plants! And when there isn't enough algae to feed them, they LOVE spinach.

Anyone else had good results with rosy barbs cleaning up their hair algae?


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

Yes, barbs are known to eat hair algae and some plants but don't expect to to eat other types of algae


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## jamesbaptista (Jul 20, 2012)

mistergreen said:


> Yes, barbs are known to eat hair algae and some plants but don't expect to to eat other types of algae


Yeah... I've got my Ottos for that


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## jstehman (Dec 13, 2010)

Yep. They sure are good at cleaning up hair algae. And sword leaves...


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## greekfish (Aug 10, 2009)

I've seen my roselines eating hair algae


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## Canuck (Apr 30, 2009)

They'll also pick at BBA. I really liked them but they have a couple of drawbacks, they can get fairly big 4-6 inches. And mine had an appetite for a lot of greenery. When they mowed my stargrass down, they were traded in.

Another thing you'll notice is if you have a large population of snails, it will decline quite dramatically after introducing rosy barbs.


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