Bubble algae

[colejr]

Vibrant, at half the recommended dosage. Yes I know that it is the scurge of the industry because of the dishonesty about the product. But prior to that coming to light, many people were using it with great success, myself included.

 

[Jpiotro]

I took my rock out and dowsed it in hydrogen peroxide. First round took about 90% of it, 2nd round took the last 9.9-10%, I then ordered emeralds from WWC and they took care of the few that were left. It's been 8 months and the emeralds keep them at bay.

do you have issues with your crabs eating corals?

 

[prodbot7]

SO this was somewhat going scorched earth, but I was just so sick of bubble algae and ulva…. I drained my tank to expose all algae and placed hydrogen peroxide soaked cotton balls on the algae for ~5 min. There was no immediate change but the following day all the algae was bleached white and dead. (See pic) I cleaned it up a bit and did a water change.

All the coral was fine, including the Zoas that I covered as they had bryopsis grousing out of them. This said, the ONLY sps I have are a couple of montis… I’m not sure how acros would respond to being in the air for ~5 min…

 

[rahger]

do you have issues with your crabs eating corals?

not that i've noticed. if they're nibbling, it's not enough to cause any problems. sometimes they'll snatch food from the mushrooms and LPS.

 

[rahger]

SO this was somewhat going scorched earth, but I was just so sick of bubble algae and ulva…. I drained my tank to expose all algae and placed hydrogen peroxide soaked cotton balls on the algae for ~5 min. There was no immediate change but the following day all the algae was bleached white and dead. (See pic) I cleaned it up a bit and did a water change.

All the coral was fine, including the Zoas that I covered as they had bryopsis grousing out of them. This said, the ONLY sps I have are a couple of montis… I’m not sure how acros would respond to being in the air for ~5 min…

I had like 5-6 acros when i did something similar. I was less careful and just dosed the rock. acros did fine with the air exposure, rock dowsing and rinsing. I did try to avoid hitting the SPS directly, but the zoas i didn't even try to avoid and they bounced back fine.

 

[dpfriedman]

hey everyone, i’ve been battling bubble algae the past few months and cannot get rid of it to save my life. i’m willing to try just ab anything right now. does anyone have any ideas or anything for getting rid of bubble algae? would a few day blackout work? any ideas are welcome

I’m battling it right now in my 5g nano. The emerald crab wasn’t interested.
Removed my macro algae and have been using Vibrant for Reef Tanks. Things are looking on the up and up but it is not an overnight thing.
I am doubling the dose to 1ml per week.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Everyone has their own method, trials and successes. For me, I generally use 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 (controversial) 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

 

[Sportn]

that’s what i’ve heard as well. my tank has quite a bit and they don’t come off hardly at all

I had a really, really bad bubble algae. Emerald crabs did nothing, one spot foxface did nothing; however, pitho crabs attacked it with vigor consistently. They are amazing on bubble algae from my experience.

 

[BigSkyRich]

hey everyone, i’ve been battling bubble algae the past few months and cannot get rid of it to save my life. i’m willing to try just ab anything right now. does anyone have any ideas or anything for getting rid of bubble algae? would a few day blackout work? any ideas are welcome

I share your pain. Best luck I've had is manual removal as able (or motivated) and emerald crabs.

 

[BigSkyRich]

hey everyone, i’ve been battling bubble algae the past few months and cannot get rid of it to save my life. i’m willing to try just ab anything right now. does anyone have any ideas or anything for getting rid of bubble algae? would a few day blackout work? any ideas are welcome

I share your pain. Best luck I've had is manual removal as able (or motivated) and emerald crabs.

 

[Panky]

Just pop them and move on

 

[Joe.D]

I had a pretty big bubble algae breakout earlier this year - every weekend I’d scrape. My tank is a 75 gallon display. Finally got tired of that as the scraping and adding emerald crabs and one spot Foxface didn’t really help - it’d be back the following week. Just too many areas you can’t see and get to when you scrape.

I saw a thread on Reef2Reef from @brandon429 about using peroxide. His suggestion of pulling the rocks and spraying with peroxide did the trick for me. There’s still some in the system, but it’s only a few that I scrape and siphon into filter a sock before I do a water change.

I didn’t do all of my rock at once. Did it in 3 or 4 groups every few days.

When I pulled the rock I took off all of my frags - fortunately I didn’t have a ton of coral.

When I took the rock out I sprayed it with 3% peroxide that I picked up at the store. Let it sit for about 5 min and then scraped and scrubbed then rinsed with fresh saltwater before putting them back in and re-glued frags.

I’ve had it under control since then. I think the crabs and Foxface can help keep it under control when there isn’t a lot and the bubbles are rather small.

It’s a drastic step, you have to redo your aquascape, but it worked for me.

Also, I know this forum is about 50-50 on whether to pop or not. I say scrape and pop away (as long as you suck out what you can). The crabs and Foxface pop it when they eat. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Good Luck!

 

[thermoJoe]

I just live with it. When they get abundant and large, I just spear them with a sharp poker. Check out this huge one I videoed popping by dropping it Bubble pop

 

[Mandarin64]

i’ve done that and they always come back

I have a 7 ft tank covered in bubble algae so i removed all my rocks over 3 days and soaked them over night in hydrogen peroxide then scrubbed them with a toothbrush and rinsed them in RO before putting them back. So far (6 months) no bubble algae. This was a bit extreme but i had enough bioload and minimal corals that it didnt affect my corals or fish.

 

[prodbot7]

I definitely agree with the hydrogen peroxide method, but thinking about it a bit more, I’m glad that I was unable to remove my whole rock structure and instead just used cotton balls for spot treatment…. You just lose SO MICH beneficial bacteria/pods/other good life by soaking all your rock… I imagine it could trigger something of a recycle in your tank.

Also a comment on Flucanozol (spelling?) I used it once with great success, however, afterwards I had to deal with a series of other unfortunate events, dinos etc that I credit to the fluc knocking out a lot of the beneficial bacteria in our tank….

Just some thoughts. Good luck whatever you choose!

 

[Floyd-]

is it a powder? im looking online and thats what i see when i search flux rx

Its a powder that comes in gelcap form. You have to break them open into a glass and stir in tank water (not RODI) and then add into the tank.
I didnt see real results for about 5-7 days. From there the numbers quickly dropped. After 4 weeks I cannot find a single bubble.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Also a comment on Flucanozol (spelling?) I used it once with great success, however, afterwards I had to deal with a series of other unfortunate events, dinos etc that I credit to the fluc knocking out a lot of the beneficial bacteria in our tank….

Fluconazole is not an antibiotic

 

[davidcalgary29]

Vibrant, at half the recommended dosage. Yes I know that it is the scurge of the industry because of the dishonesty about the product. But prior to that coming to light, many people were using it with great success, myself included.

I'd only use this if CUC and coral losses are acceptable. I crashed my Evo 13.5 four months ago after dosing vibrant, and it still hasn't recovered. The valonia is gone, but so is everything else except the fish.

 

[SrDudley]

I have two emerald crabs and a pitho in my sump as they thought coral tasted better than the bubble algae. +1 for manual removal no one likes crabs :p

 

[6965]

hey everyone, i’ve been battling bubble algae the past few months and cannot get rid of it to save my life. i’m willing to try just ab anything right now. does anyone have any ideas or anything for getting rid of bubble algae? would a few day blackout work? any ideas are welcome

Amazon product ASIN B075ZWFF5P
I had the same issue before. This stuff worked well. It got rid of all my bubble algae issues without any reef affects.