# Florida Flag Fish - Hair/Brush/Beard Algae



## Wö£fëñxXx (Dec 2, 2003)

I've had a few of these guys in my day, I did not like them, they were fin nippers....grrrr, they had to go!!!


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## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

I think that Jordanella floridae is a must have fish for clean up in the planted tank, they are very aggressive hair/thread algae eaters. My first pair were adult females that died a couple of weeks ago and I never had any nipping problems. I replaced them with 2 females and 1 male, all juvenile and have had no problems yet, although the juveniles are not as aggressive eaters. I guess I'll have to wait and see if the get aggressive during mating.


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## RoseHawke (Mar 10, 2004)

Well, I know I don't have any hair/thread algae ! 

I've not had any nipping problems either. What were yours munching on, Craig? I do know that since the introduction of the rams a couple of days ago the flags are absolutely _fascinated _with them. Not nipping, not chasing, just want to go over and look at them. Maybe they think those are odd-looking flag fish ?


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## aquaverde (Apr 15, 2003)

I had definite aggression problems with AFFs. Highly recommend females only if you try them out.


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## shalu (Jan 16, 2003)

AFF were great algae eaters until I had discus. They switched to meaty food quickly and forgot all about algae.


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## BuffaloM (Jan 10, 2005)

All traces of the red and green hair-like algae were gone yesterday and just nubs of the black and gray looking ones were left, no long strands. As of tonight theres pretty much no hair algae at all except for a couple of little chewed down nubs here and there (much fewer than yesterday, and those that are left are shorter). I wish I hadn't pruned/tossed out some plants that were covered beyond recongnition in hair algae just before I put them in. I had no idea they would be such good eaters of the hair algae.

Both fish are still shy, taking off to hide when I stick my face up to the tank, but they appear to have eaten almost every bit of hair algae in the tank.

They do not have any interest in flake food as of yet, will they learn to eat it or should I add sinking food to the tank? Will they eat other algae or turn to my plants?

I also have the suspisioin they may be eating shrimp, but I can't be sure.

Thought I'd let everyone know how through they were with the hair algae, I'm amaised.


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## Piscesgirl (Jan 20, 2004)

Would be nice to hear some good stories about them. I'm thinking of purchasing a few as well.


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## BuffaloM (Jan 10, 2005)

An update:
After a few days all of the hair algae was gone (wow).
On the down side they were still hungry and I saw them nip at some of my tastier plants. I got some generic sinking "algae wafers" from the petmegastore and they eat those instead of the plants now.
Also, they didn't eat any shrimp. I had a tough time getting a good count before but I finally did and everyones present and accounted for.
They're still very shy but they will come to the front of the tank now when I'm around. If the male catches me looking at him he'll go hide but they seem very peaceful.
As a warning, I've read that if the female lays eggs the male will be agressive.
So far, they've worked better than expected.
Now if I could only find something to clean all of the green spots off my glass my tank would take care of itself.


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

The green spots can be remedied by ottos (otocinclus).


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## hOAGART (May 13, 2004)

My AFF are definate fin-nippers .. i think they attacked and killed 11 of 12 cardinal tetras of mine .. but i have no proof. but they are really good algae eaters if theres nothing else in the tank to eat :fish:


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## ^iMp^ (Oct 12, 2003)

How would AFF fair in a cool-water, "river tank" type of environment? Are they mostly calm-water fish?

I need a thread/beard algae eater...and a fry eater. AFF is the only fish that seems to work for my tank (minus the above conditions).

^iMp^


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## ronin (Dec 28, 2004)

My sole AFF seems to be moderately aggressive as well. Most of the time he'll seem to stalk the other fish every now and then. He won't actually nip them, just swim up real close from behind and the target fish will usually zip away before he can get close enough to try to bite.

However, he's a real problem during feeding time when I drop half of a Hikari sinking tablet in for the pygmy cories. Once the AFF finds it, he'll drive away every other fish that tries to get a bite. Which is a bit of a problem since all my fish in that tank are relatively small (pygmy cories, sparkling gouramis, honey gourami, Burmese chocolate gourami). So I'll either have to start dropping multiple smaller pieces of the sinking tabs or remove him from the tank altogether.

He leaves my cherry shrimp alone though.

Forgot to mention that as far as processed food goes, he ONLY eats the sinking tablets. Doesn't touch flake food.


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## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

It's funny that everyone is having a different experience with AFF, I have never seen mine be aggressive and I have never seen mine eat at all and I only feed my fish every other day, so they are all eager to eat (except the AFF). Maybe it's the size of the tank, they might need plenty of room to move around.


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## observant_imp (Jun 30, 2004)

After reading all the the threads on Florida Flag Fish the last few months, I decided I had to have some and asked hubby to order some in. He tried hard to discourage me "They're kinda ugly fish." Then he tried harder "They can be nippy." Then he tried really hard "I've seen them back down African cichlids." I still had to have them.

He got in 7 that looked half dead. I dumped them in my 65. Within a week all 7 look fat and sassy, and there we no traces of algae on any of the equipment. Wow! These were even better than ottos. I needed them in all my tanks.

It's been a couple of months now. :icon_frow In my 65, one of the males is "in the mood." He's not being too belligerent--he's staked out an area about 6X6X6 that no one else is allowed in but is otherwise pretty mellow. However, I've noticed that for the last week or so, my adult discus has been looking pretty stressed. And this morning I noticed that 2 of the females were nipping at it. I have a hunch I'm going to have to remove the plants to catch them. :icon_frow 

In one of my 28's, someone (I don't know who) keeps pulling up my foreground. This tank has no algae--I just thought good preventative (really dumb idea). I have a few pearl gouramis and a bunch of small tetra type fish in this tank (rummy noses, blood fins, harlequin's). Guess who I suspect.

In my other 28, the juvenile brichardi won't let them anywhere near the rock (so they aren't that tough). Guess it's a good thing I decided to wait a while to add upper level schoolers--the tank is too small for them to tolerate another species in it.

My take on flag fish: awesome algae eaters, but perhaps more trouble than they're worth.


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