clhardy5
Active Member
Yep....I used a small fox face in a 60 gallon. He took care of the bubble algae that he could, and then took a liking my only colony of zoas. I need to catch and rehome him now as he is too big for the tank.
Bubble Algae... What is your method?
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mike550
Valuable Member
@Tamberav and @KingTideCorals thanks for your comments. I’m a newbie at two years and working with coral makes me nervous, and I’m reluctant to take them out of the water. This will give me a bit more calm about things. ThanksCoral 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.
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.reefbuilders.com
I forgot a montipora on my kitchen counter overnight lol. It had some die off around the edge from being left out 12 hours but was 80 percent fine and completely recovered.
I don’t recommend forgetting corals sitting on the counter but that was an extreme example of their resilience that surprised me.
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KingTideCorals
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Yeah this is what I ended up doing, I show some of the scrubbing on my video from my YouTube channel on the original post!
Agreed though, you need to be the HERBIVORE!
I did almost the same thing with an acro colony. Took it out to frag it, niece called me right after and was having car issues. Let it on the cooler lid I was going to frag it on, went to help her, 4 hours later, came back and fragged it. No issues with it, but man was it slimy lol.
It was not a small colony. The pic below is when I got back and you can see it still looks "wet". That is the slime and there was a ton of slime on the cooler lid lol.
sfin52
So many pedestrians so little time
I did almost the same thing with an acro colony. Took it out to frag it, niece called me right after and was having car issues. Let it on the cooler lid I was going to frag it on, went to help her, 4 hours later, came back and fragged it. No issues with it, but man was it slimy lol.
It was not a small colony. The pic below is when I got back and you can see it still looks "wet". That is the slime and there was a ton of slime on the cooler lid lol.
You created low tide
Easiest way I have found is to use a stainless straw (like for a yeti cup), tubing to put the straw into and scraping it off while siphoning. Then turning off flow and putting a little h2o2 in that area and letting it sit there for a few minutes. Kalk paste will also work.
Here is an example of the straw and tube method.
Kraig
Well-Known Member
Bubble algae is currently my least favorite thing about this hobby. I've been manually removing what I can almost every weekend. I get in there with an exacto knife and my wife comes in with a small tube connected to a make shift vacuum that runs through a cannister filter. I cut, scrape off everything that I can get to while she sucks up all the loose bubbles. This works fairly well but they come back quickly. I might skip a weekend every once in a while, but most weekend we spend at least an hour in the tank doing this.
I have tried a couple of emerald crabs (1 at a time) but they didn't touch the stuff, and for whatever reason, both have died (only thing in my tank that has in my first year of having a reef tank).
I think I am going to get a couple of pitho's to see if I have any success with those. If not, I guess I will just keep manually removing like we have been.
I have tried a couple of emerald crabs (1 at a time) but they didn't touch the stuff, and for whatever reason, both have died (only thing in my tank that has in my first year of having a reef tank).
I think I am going to get a couple of pitho's to see if I have any success with those. If not, I guess I will just keep manually removing like we have been.
blstravler
2500 Club Member
I order a set of dental tools (teeth cleaning) from Amazon and I use them to pick it out and then I just suck it up. Emeralds get what I don’t see - this has always worked for me extremely well.
1) Pick the few that are in crevices and show up from time to time.
2) Lazily wait til they get stuck in a power head or an urchin picks them up to remove them.
Never found them to develop to anything close to an issue if you remove them even with lazy frequency.
2) Lazily wait til they get stuck in a power head or an urchin picks them up to remove them.
Never found them to develop to anything close to an issue if you remove them even with lazy frequency.
Joe.D
Active Member
Thats
That’s what I did too - stainless dental tools from Amazon. I scrape and my wife follows along with Python siphoning into a sock in the sump. I have a 75 gallon, considering one spot foxface for now and re-home when it gets too big.
biecacka
Valuable Member
The question I have is, does the sock catch all the "spores" that are released from popping them or are you trying to remove the whole bubble. Some larger tanks with more rock work would brutal to remove all the rock out. Not saying its not worth it but it would be like a total re-aquascape if you had to remove 150lbs of rock or something.
corey
corey
That myth has been de-bunked there is no spores in bubble algae, it's fresh water
pop away! Right @DanyL ?
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legalizedreefer
Active Member
I had a small patch of bubble algae absolutely explode into an infestation.
it’s likely the accumulation of multiple things.
1. My UV has been offline as it’s installed on my soon to be set up upgrade
2. I was feeding reefroids probably too much
This is probably not the best method but all I did was go in there with forceps and destroy the living crap out of as many bubbles I could find. Let them find their way into my filter floss and swap the floss after.
I’ve since started dosing bottled bac daily and live phyto rather than reef roids.
as it stands right now, the patches I’ve destroyed have not made a comeback. Fingers crossed, cause this stuff is uggggggglly
it’s likely the accumulation of multiple things.
1. My UV has been offline as it’s installed on my soon to be set up upgrade
2. I was feeding reefroids probably too much
This is probably not the best method but all I did was go in there with forceps and destroy the living crap out of as many bubbles I could find. Let them find their way into my filter floss and swap the floss after.
I’ve since started dosing bottled bac daily and live phyto rather than reef roids.
as it stands right now, the patches I’ve destroyed have not made a comeback. Fingers crossed, cause this stuff is uggggggglly
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