Bubble Algae... What is your method?

KingTideCorals · Jan 15, 2023

I love seeing these discussions on here chatting about the anecdotes/trials from all reefers on how they handle a problem within the hobby. One in particular I feel that almost all despise in their display is Valonia aka Bubble Algae. Would love to hear from you all your experiences and what you did to try and mitigate this problem.

Check out my video and see how I try to tackle my bubble algae issue currently in my Lagoon tank! My method is manual removal and just be ther Herbivore! LOL

Look forward to a fun discussion with you all, happy reefing!

biecacka · Jan 15, 2023

Following. I have a few patches in my tank and I hate looking at it honestly.

corey

Jekyl · Jan 15, 2023

Emerald crabs and a one spot foxface keep mine at a minimum.

pandaparties · Jan 15, 2023

My vlamingi seems to love it, scrape it off the rock with a toothbrush and he goes ham. My purple tang seems to eat it if it's in the water column too.

Emerald crabbies help keep it in check too

reefiniteasy · Jan 15, 2023

Emerald crab, my current emerald won’t touch it. Or I stop flow in the tank. Nudge them loose and scoop them out.

Kodski · Jan 15, 2023

I've seen some people just put one or two emerald crabs in their tank expecting them to make a dent and then complain that they arn't fixing the problem. True emerald crabs to eat bubble algae, but you need quite a few. I'd say 1 per 10 gallons ish. So for me its more of a solution targeted towards nano tanks. I added a fox face to help my bubble algae problem and it took a little while but eventually no more bubble algae. Sadly he passed away a few months ago, and now its making a come back. I may need to get another fox face in the future.

doubleshot00 · Jan 15, 2023

I had several patches and removed by hand two weeks ago. Added two emeralds and one got one patch I couldn’t reach today. If i have to hand remove every two weeks then I don’t see a problem. Keep on top of it.

vetteguy53081 · Jan 15, 2023

I have a large sewing needle rubber banded to a 1/4" hose and I stab each one with needle and all gets sucked up at the same time

DonJuanAntwon · Jan 15, 2023

My emerald crab and my pithy crab do a good job and they leave my corals alone. The pitho crab does a little better job as I see him munching on it more.

mike550 · Jan 15, 2023

So I watched the video and watched the guy pull out his rock work to scrub off the bubble algae. I never thought you could pull out a rock full of coral to clean it and the coral would be okay? Really?

KingTideCorals · Jan 15, 2023

mike550 said:
So I watched the video and watched the guy pull out his rock work to scrub off the bubble algae. I never thought you could pull out a rock full of coral to clean it and the coral would be okay? Really?

Hey there! Thanks for checking out my video! Yeah the soft corals dont mind being out of the water for a minute. This happens as well for any fragging that occurs!

Joekovar · Jan 15, 2023

I'm not sure what happened, but I went from a bunch of it, it having odd craters where encrusting coral had started growing over it.

It just kinda went away on it's own.

I'm wondering if an explosion in the turbo snail population had something to do with it. I went from 3 large snails, to looking one night and seeing a hundred or so baby snails all over the place. Then like a month later I looked again and there was a new generation of baby snails.

There must be 200 snails in there right now. I really need to stay up one night this week and pick a bunch of them out of there.

thatmanMIKEson · Jan 15, 2023

Kodski said:
I've seen some people just put one or two emerald crabs in their tank expecting them to make a dent and then complain that they arn't fixing the problem. True emerald crabs to eat bubble algae, but you need quite a few. I'd say 1 per 10 gallons ish. So for me its more of a solution targeted towards nano tanks. I added a fox face to help my bubble algae problem and it took a little while but eventually no more bubble algae. Sadly he passed away a few months ago, and now its making a come back. I may need to get another fox face in the future.

They go for 120$ at my lfs!

sfin52 · Jan 15, 2023

Black spot foxface. It has the widest algea palete.

Tamberav · Jan 15, 2023

KingTideCorals said:
I love seeing these discussions on here chatting about the anecdotes/trials from all reefers on how they handle a problem within the hobby. One in particular I feel that almost all despise in their display is Valonia aka Bubble Algae. Would love to hear from you all your experiences and what you did to try and mitigate this problem.

Check out my video and see how I try to tackle my bubble algae issue currently in my Lagoon tank! My method is manual removal and just be ther Herbivore! LOL

Look forward to a fun discussion with you all, happy reefing!

I did manual removal and when new ones popped up, kept removing it. It eventually never returned. Doable on a nano.

AydenLincoln · Jan 16, 2023

Popping them!

Just kidding…hydrogen peroxide!

KingTideCorals · Jan 16, 2023

sfin52 said:
Black spot foxface. It has the widest algea palete.

I had a foxface that loved it as well, my lagoon is a 25 gallon so hard to keep a bubble algae herbivore in that size tank...

Any recommendations? I could get a small tang/rabbitfish and move into a larger system after its done its job..? What is yall's thoughts?

sfin52 · Jan 16, 2023

KingTideCorals said:
I had a foxface that loved it as well, my lagoon is a 25 gallon so hard to keep a bubble algae herbivore in that size tank...

Any recommendations? I could get a small tang/rabbitfish and move into a larger system after its done its job..? What is yall's thoughts?

Maybe remove rocks as necessary and scrub clean. Manual removal.

Tamberav · Jan 16, 2023

KingTideCorals said:
I had a foxface that loved it as well, my lagoon is a 25 gallon so hard to keep a bubble algae herbivore in that size tank...

Any recommendations? I could get a small tang/rabbitfish and move into a larger system after its done its job..? What is yall's thoughts?

Rabbit fish grow extremely fast and tangs often don’t seem to be much use for it.

Tamberav · Jan 16, 2023

mike550 said:
So I watched the video and watched the guy pull out his rock work to scrub off the bubble algae. I never thought you could pull out a rock full of coral to clean it and the coral would be okay? Really?

Coral is fine out of the water for some time, even SPS. I remove my rock with corals if I need to do something and small picos do 90 percent water changes so all the water is drained for a bit.

Mother Nature does this at low tides. Corals have adapted to survive it. They can be out of the water for hours during the tides.

Corals basically slime up. Also in the wild they would be beat with the sun, wind and rain.

It’s pretty cozy in your house compared to outside and being out of the water isn’t very long when working with the rock. Often you can just spray the rock with tank water to keep them moist to prevent any die off.

Extreme Low Tide At Bangka Island Exposes Corals To Air, And They Survive! | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

Extreme tidal variations happen each month during what is known as a spring tide. This tidal phase happens twice each lunar month and the big swing in tidal heights occurs closes to the new moon.

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