Confirm Bubble Algae

[vetteguy53081]

That’s a lot to have popped up over a vacation, unless it was a really long one. If it wasn’t a 40g, I’ve had a scopas and a gem tang eat and/or pop them and eradicate them from my tank. I never had luck with anything else.

These are supported by light, low water movement and high nutrient tanks.
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

 

[eliaslikesfish]

These are supported by light, low water movement and high nutrient tanks.
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! i’ll turn up the flow as well. Nitrates hover around 15-20ppm consistently (hanna checker) and phosphates are at .05-.1ppm also checked with hanna

 

[Joe.D]

My friend, that is plague proportion, u need to take ur rock out and over the course of 2-3 months, spray them with h2o2 diluted to combat them

I agree. I scraped every week with water change for months. Added Foxface, emeralds - didn’t help, kept coming back. The challenge with just scraping a large infestation without removing the rock is that there’s so much you can’t see and it just keeps spreading.

Finally, with help from this site, I took out about 1/3 of my rock at a time (75 g tank) over the course of 2 weeks. Soaked with h2o2 and scrubbed and scraped. After that, the emeralds and the Foxface pretty much kept up. Plus, the coralline took over. Now, a year later, I have a few bubbles per week that I take care of at water change time - not a problem.

As far as removing coral, I lost a couple that I couldn’t remove easily. The Duncan should pop off fairly easily. The nem, be patient and do it slowly so you don’t damage its foot - plenty of how to’s with a google search.

Good luck!

 

[VintageReefer]

I was thinking of buying and trying this

https://fishofhex.com/products/bubble-algae-removal-tool-v2?variant=39678592548918

 

[eliaslikesfish]

I agree. I scraped every week with water change for months. Added Foxface, emeralds - didn’t help, kept coming back. The challenge with just scraping a large infestation without removing the rock is that there’s so much you can’t see and it just keeps spreading.

Finally, with help from this site, I took out about 1/3 of my rock at a time (75 g tank) over the course of 2 weeks. Soaked with h2o2 and scrubbed and scraped. After that, the emeralds and the Foxface pretty much kept up. Plus, the coralline took over. Now, a year later, I have a few bubbles per week that I take care of at water change time - not a problem.

As far as removing coral, I lost a couple that I couldn’t remove easily. The Duncan should pop off fairly easily. The nem, be patient and do it slowly so you don’t damage its foot - plenty of how to’s with a google search.

Good luck!

thank you sir, yeah I’ve not been in the hobby for long enough to make my big first mistake, and well, I’ve made it and i’m now going to pay for it. I should have started getting on top of it way sooner than I did, and upon further inspection i’m going to need to remove each rock. How would you recommend going about doing it? I have corals on almost every rock.

i’ll never let this happen again smh

 

[VintageReefer]

Take good photos in white lighting.

It is nearly impossible to get the rocks back the exact same way. But you can get close with good photos. Any frags on plugs that can be removed, remove and put aside in the tank or in a bucket. Take the rock out, to a sink and scrape the bubble algae off with a small Flat screwdriver or similar scraping tool.

Dunk rock in a 5g bucket of clean saltwater a few times and put back in tank and reassemble.

Move on to next section and repeat.

 

[eliaslikesfish]

Take good photos in white lighting.

It is nearly impossible to get the rocks back the exact same way. But you can get close with good photos. Any frags on plugs that can be removed, remove and put aside in the tank or in a bucket. Take the rock out, to a sink and scrape the bubble algae off with a small Flat screwdriver or similar scraping tool.

Dunk rock in a 5g bucket of clean saltwater a few times and put back in tank and reassemble.

Move on to next section and repeat.

Sounds good. just a couple more things, my btas are both deep in their rock’s and one is hosting my clowns currently, I assume I’ll have to remove them both from the rocks? Will all the fish survive the stress when i remove and remake their home? I don’t have a qt tank to place them in while I do this currently.

 

[VintageReefer]

You can take the rock out with the bra retracted inside it. Just be quick with the scraping and put it back in the water asap. Might not be able to fully clean in one pass.

 

[Joe.D]

thank you sir, yeah I’ve not been in the hobby for long enough to make my big first mistake, and well, I’ve made it and i’m now going to pay for it. I should have started getting on top of it way sooner than I did, and upon further inspection i’m going to need to remove each rock. How would you recommend going about doing it? I have corals on almost every rock.

i’ll never let this happen again smh

I pulled my corals off and moved them to another rock temporarily when I cleaned and did h2o2 dip/scrub. I only lost 1 or 2 corals.

I’ll defer to @brandon429 on the overall strategy as he was a big help to me.