Can I leave this Bubble algae?

[Jas6318]

Hey everyone,

Just need a little advice here from some more experienced reefers

I’ve got some bubble algae in my tank, I’ve manually removed it from some coral frags here and there which helped some corals and other corals weren’t very happy after I removed it.
I’ve just noticed that it’s spreading and is on all of my rocks in the tank. Not in large amounts but just sparsely spread throughout the tank. It would be very difficult to remove it from everywhere as it’s hard to reach some areas, so the question is, is it just gonna keep getting worse and worse, or will it just stay sparsely on the rocks like it is now. It’s not really bothering me at the moment, but don’t want it to get out of control either.
The tank is 7 months old, waterbox 20 cube. My nitrate sits consistently between 5-8 (usually 5), and my phosphate is pretty much undetectable (maybe 0.005). Salinity is 1.026.
Seems as though I increase my feeding and the only thing that increases is my nitrate, phosphate never changes.
I don’t really have any other algae issues apart from film algae on the glass to varying degrees depending on how heavy I feed. I generally feed pretty light though.
I’ll attach some pics for reference. The first pic just shows the tank in general, the close ups show the bubble algae.

 

[MNFish]

I have some in my 13.5 aquarium that showed up about a year ago an has not spread much at all. I have just left it alone and really it is not causing any ill effects after a year. Not saying this is right or wrong but just my one experience.

 

[CoralB]

At some point when nutrients and the moon Aline you will get a explosion of these nasty little buggers all over your tank . If you had a bigger tank I’d suggest getting a rabbit fish but since you don’t manual removal and emerald crabs . If you can find pitho crabs are best . Just hard to find anyone carring them . Good luck !!

 

[Nano sapiens]

While many reef associated alga can live and thrive in reef natural low nutrient water, bubble algae tend to take off when nutrients become elevated.

You have quite a bit in there and they are certainly helping to keep your PO4 and NO3 levels relatively low (you can think of your tank as being higher nutrient, but the nutrients are being assimilated by the algae so they don't show as high on the tests).

I had a similar situation when I first started my tank. For me, the best solution was to reduce feedings a bit, vacuum the gravel/remove detritus buildup a bit more often and manually remove at least some of the bubbles at least once a week. After 14 years with the same aquarium, I now only see bubble algae if I overfeed and the nutrients rise appreciably (the spores can lie dormant for years).

Some people use certain large fish (large tanks) and/or Emerald crabs in the hope that they will eat these (sometimes they do, sometimes they don't).

 

[Jas6318]

I have some in my 13.5 aquarium that showed up about a year ago an has not spread much at all. I have just left it alone and really it is not causing any ill effects after a year. Not saying this is right or wrong but just my one experience.

That is encouraging! Thanks for the reply

 

[Jas6318]

At some point when nutrients and the moon Aline you will get a explosion of these nasty little buggers all over your tank . If you had a bigger tank I’d suggest getting a rabbit fish but since you don’t manual removal and emerald crabs . If you can find pitho crabs are best . Just hard to find anyone carring them . Good luck !!

Thanks for the advice, I’m in Australia, not sure if I can get emerald crabs here??

 

[Jas6318]

While many reef associated alga can live and thrive in reef natural low nutrient water, bubble algae tend to take off when nutrients become elevated.

You have quite a bit in there and they are certainly helping to keep your PO4 and NO3 levels relatively low (you can think of your tank as being higher nutrient, but the nutrients are being assimilated by the algae so they don't show as high on the tests).

I had a similar situation when I first started my tank. For me, the best solution was to reduce feedings a bit, vacuum the gravel/remove detritus buildup a bit more often and manually remove at least some of the bubbles at least once a week. After 14 years with the same aquarium, I now only see bubble algae if I overfeed and the nutrients rise appreciably (the spores can lie dormant for years).

Some people use certain large fish (large tanks) and/or Emerald crabs in the hope that they will eat these (sometimes they do, sometimes they don't).

Ok that’s really helpful. So what amount of nitrates do you think I should aim for on the test kit?

 

[Hungrypede]

@reefcleaners emerald crabs. Guaranteed to eat bubble algae. I had fed 7 to a 150 a while back and within a week the bubble algae was down 80%. Haven’t seen any bubble algae pop up after that.
Haven’t had any issues with the crabs going rogue, but if/when they do they get to live in the sump.

 

[Nano sapiens]

Ok that’s really helpful. So what amount of nitrates do you think I should aim for on the test kit?

The general trend nowadays is to shoot for something around 5 - 15 ppm for a typical mixed reef.

Having said that, there are reef aquariums that have undetectable, as well as those that have 50 ppm (or more) nitrate and do just fine, but there are inherent risks in such extremes.

My system currently runs a consistent 10-15 ppm NO3 with the type/amount of food and the maintenance routine that I employ. In the past I had a different set of inhabitants/fed different foods and I used to see 1-2 ppm.

One thing to remember is that the NO3 levels that you are testing are simply the residual leftover in the water. In reality, as long as you don't bottom out to '0' on a test kit it's all good. But the closer you are to '0', the easier it is to bottom out.

 

[Jas6318]

The general trend nowadays is to shoot for something around 5 - 15 ppm for a typical mixed reef.

Having said that, there are reef aquariums that have undetectable, as well as those that have 50 ppm (or more) nitrate and do just fine, but there are inherent risks in such extremes.

My system currently runs a consistent 10-15 ppm NO3 with the type/amount of food and the maintenance routine that I employ. In the past I had a different set of inhabitants/fed different foods and I used to see 1-2 ppm.

One thing to remember is that the NO3 levels that you are testing are simply the residual leftover in the water. In reality, as long as you don't bottom out to '0' on a test kit it's all good. But the closer you are to '0', the easier it is to bottom out.

Ok great. So maybe I’m best to just manually remove what I can, and keep up with my maintainence as I’m doing currently. Which is weekly water changes (20%) and vacuuming sand bed. Thanks so much for the advice!

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I closed up a 20 gallon tank years ago because that stuff just took over my tank, it can spread super fast. Keep an eye on it and take preventative measures described in above posts.

 

[Jas6318]

I closed up a 20 gallon tank years ago because that stuff just took over my tank, it can spread super fast. Keep an eye on it and take preventative measures described in above posts.

Oh no! Hopefully that doesn’t happen here, I’m really starting to like how my tank is coming along.

 

[kingoftheHiLLpeople]

I pulled em off - carefully so as not to pop them in the tank. They seemed to come off pretty easily and usually as one mass. Either that or the aforementioned crab(s)

 

[Jas6318]

I pulled em off - carefully so as not to pop them in the tank. They seemed to come off pretty easily and usually as one mass. Either that or the aforementioned crab(s)

Yes I ended just removing as many as I could get to, so hopefully that will keep it at bay