Bubble Algae: To worry or to not?

[schooleyosis]

I have a few rocks in my tank that have a few patches of bubble algae starting on them and I am curious if I should try and get rid of it all ASAP or just let it grow?

I have 2 emerald crabs but I don't tend to see them near where the bubble algae is.

What are your thoughts? Good? Bad? The Devil???

 

[nova65ss]

Devil.....I have been battling it for about a year. I have only tried manual removal so far scraping it off with my water change hose. A lot of times it comes back and pops up in a new space as well.

 

[schooleyosis]

I was fearing that it is the devil. It came in a frag and I thought I got all of it off of the frag before I put it in the DT. Then I noticed a few spots of it on the rock that the frag is on. Now I see it on 3 or 4 other rocks...

 

[Liquid360]

I had a nasty breakout and I got freaked. I pulled out my live rock piece by piece and scrubbed them with a toothbrush. Haven't seen a single bubble in about four or five months.


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[ibbennyb]

throw some emerald crabs in there.

 

[schooleyosis]

I had a nasty breakout and I got freaked. I pulled out my live rock piece by piece and scrubbed them with a toothbrush. Haven't seen a single bubble in about four or five months.



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All of the rocks that show the algae are on the bottom of the rock pile... :Cry:

throw some emerald crabs in there.

Bought 2 but have only seen one. Might add a few more...

 

[nova65ss]

throw some emerald crabs in there.

I have heard of emeralds nipping polyps anyone else had this problem?

 

[schooleyosis]

I've heard of it too but have yet to see mine do this...

 

[Dowtish]

If you have decent access to them try to pop them off the rocks without busting them open. Do not depend on emerald crabs.

 

[schooleyosis]

I don't have decent access to them so the plan was to create a straw with a point on the end of it to pop them while being able to suck the spores out at the same time. Gotta figure out how to create this tool though. Most of them are down in the crevices of the rocks.

I see about 7 patches and each patch only has about 5-10 bubbles in each one. Nothing major as of now but I need to get on top of it before it gets worse!

 

[Liquid360]

Sometimes if you have a good relationship with your LFS they'll "rent" you a foxface for a week or so. They'll happily take care of it.


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[schooleyosis]

I've got a big Foxface... Maybe I won't feed him for a few days... LOL

 

[Jeremy S.]

Is it green or red bubble algae?

My emeralds never touched the stuff when I had an outbreak of red bubble algae. The only thing that worked was chemiclean, which I only had to dose once. Bubble algae was literally gone over night.

 

[schooleyosis]

This is green bubble algae. The hard, round bubbles that form in clusters...

 

[Jeremy S.]

Ah ok I'm having the same problem right now actually and chemiclean does not work on it.

 

[bknapp]

Do NOT pop the bubbles, when you do they release spores and will only increase your issue.


I use LEDs..... In my sump.

 

[schooleyosis]

Thanks B. I know not to pop the bubbles, hence the reason of the tool to pop and vacuum at the same time. I think I'll try and come up with a scrape and vacuum tool that will scrape the whole bubble off of the rock and suck it up into a sock filter maybe. Then, if I do pop a few accidentally the vacuum will suck all the spores with it as well.

 

[solar]

I would try to manual remove as muchas possible without breaking/popping it as that will totally make the situation worse. Do you have a extra powerhead? or utility pump? try hooking up the input to a hose and sucking it out to a bucket.

 

[JOKER]

The key to ridding it is persistance. I had a bad outbreak of red in my tank. I just kept manually removing it. It was so bad it was on my power heads. I scrubbed every rock i could take out and picked it off what i couldnt.