Stblindtiger
Community Member
Just noticed these nasty looking bubbles growing in the refugium section of my sump??? If you zoom in, you can see them growing on the rocks under the heater….
What is this???
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Court_Appointed_Hypeman
Valuable Member
Looks like the bubble algae I get in my fuge, it comes and goes, I think its disappeared for me since I stipped using filter sicks to let my pod population bulk up, but I bet if my population declined it would regrow enough to see again.
I never manually removed mine, but you can turn off flow to scrape and net/siphon if you like. But in my experience it doesn't spread very well past the 1 chamber it is in.
There will be people that say you shouldn't pop the bubbles or it will spread, but this is not the case.
Your millage may vary, while it looks slightly lighter green than mine, it could be something that spreada more aggressively or something that micro organisms might not consume, but it did torally cover my fuge to the point where I had to shake my chaeto once in a while before it receded back.
It certainly could be dinos or cyano, make sure your nutrients are not bottomed out so that other algaes can out compete it. See if the stuff removes easily, and see if it reforms into webs in the water column when exposed to light.
If you can capture some in a jar and shake it up in tank water to see if it regains its structure in light, its a good poor man's way to help identify, but a microscope will be your best bet.
I never manually removed mine, but you can turn off flow to scrape and net/siphon if you like. But in my experience it doesn't spread very well past the 1 chamber it is in.
There will be people that say you shouldn't pop the bubbles or it will spread, but this is not the case.
Your millage may vary, while it looks slightly lighter green than mine, it could be something that spreada more aggressively or something that micro organisms might not consume, but it did torally cover my fuge to the point where I had to shake my chaeto once in a while before it receded back.
It certainly could be dinos or cyano, make sure your nutrients are not bottomed out so that other algaes can out compete it. See if the stuff removes easily, and see if it reforms into webs in the water column when exposed to light.
If you can capture some in a jar and shake it up in tank water to see if it regains its structure in light, its a good poor man's way to help identify, but a microscope will be your best bet.
