What are these hard bubbles?

[testuser]

There are these hard bubbles that are sitting on my clove polyps and also behind one of my ricordeas on a rock and nowhere else. I'm not sure if they are the same or not, but they both appear to be hard. Any ideas as to what it is? The tank is almost a year old and they've been there for a couple of months and never spread.

 

[Gman83]

Bubble algae

 

[testuser]

Bubble algae

Is there a reason why it's hard, not spreading, and can't be siphoned out? Is that typical?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Is there a reason why it's hard, not spreading, and can't be siphoned out? Is that typical?

Bubble algae also called valonia.
Take a small needle and have 3/8 tubing ready and attach to end of tubing with rubber band and pop each one and siphon at same time- You will have removed all spores and foreign material in area.
Had to do this in the past with birdsnest coral and was gone 100%.
Other option is to add pitho crabs or emerald crabs (which I do not trust) which will eat them

 

[InactiveAcct]

Is there a reason why it's hard, not spreading, and can't be siphoned out? Is that typical?

Bright side is on the list of algaes, it’s one of the easier ones. It was the easiest algae I wiped out with a product that claimed to be a bacterial blend but was actually identical to Algaefix

 

[Gman83]

Someone smarter than me can probably answer that. They will eventually grow larger. There is a lot of discussion on if you burst one, it will cause them to spread.

I had some so out of caution I pulled the rock out, scraped it off with a butter knife and havent seen them since. Probably came in on a frag

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

Bubble algae

 

[testuser]

Bubble algae also called valonia.
Take a small needle and have 3/8 tubing ready and attach to end of tubing with rubber band and pop each one and siphon at same time- You will have removed all spores and foreign material in area.
Had to do this in the past with birdsnest coral and was gone 100%.
Other option is to add pitho crabs or emerald crabs (which I do not trust) which will eat them

Thank you very much for the suggestions! I'll give this a try, appreciate everyone else in the thread for helping me identify them and giving me solutions for removal! Much better than battling dinos haha