Losing the battle with bubble algae - order of things

[enricocoron]

So I've had a 60 gal cube set up 2 years now, am seeing really good corraline alage and coral growth, good and stable parameters, weekly 15% water change, 2 x a week sock filter change, everything I thought I should do and only issue was a little GHA here and there that I could pick out and just clean the glass over the last year. Then a few months ago wham, there appears the bubble algae, just a few tiny ones at first. No big deal, I watch the you tube video about using an airline hose to siphon them out, tweezers to dislodge and then try to siphon water around them to catch spores. A few weeks later, there are more, in new spots, guessing spores spread. Try again, more intensely trying to scrub the rocks and really siphon as much out as I can, change the sock an hour after to hopefully get spores out of the system. Then rinse/repeat again until now they are on every surface of every rock and starting to threaten the corals. I'm terrified to manually remove them again (and how can you see invisible spores, if you miss one mL of water it could have millions of spores in it). The only way I could manually remove is break the entire tank down and if I do that I'm probably fragging the colonies and buying a bigger tank and starting over.

So I ordered Brightwell Razor and Microbacter clean after reading about it and Vibrant and selecting the Razor after much deliberation. I know there is a risk as there are a lot of horror stories about dead corals, but I also found a lot of success stories and IME people are more likely to post negative things than positive and at this point I'm taking the chance.

My question here is, should I try to remove the bubble algae manually again before adding the Razor? Or just add the Razor and don't touch the algae just let the poison do its thing, and if it looks dead and dying then maybe tweezer/scrape/brush rocks as best as possible.

Should I add Emerald crabs to finish them off or to prevent their return? IME hermits have not interest and neither does my Kole Tang.

 

[Jekyl]

So I've had a 60 gal cube set up 2 years now, am seeing really good corraline alage and coral growth, good and stable parameters, weekly 15% water change, 2 x a week sock filter change, everything I thought I should do and only issue was a little GHA here and there that I could pick out and just clean the glass over the last year. Then a few months ago wham, there appears the bubble algae, just a few tiny ones at first. No big deal, I watch the you tube video about using an airline hose to siphon them out, tweezers to dislodge and then try to siphon water around them to catch spores. A few weeks later, there are more, in new spots, guessing spores spread. Try again, more intensely trying to scrub the rocks and really siphon as much out as I can, change the sock an hour after to hopefully get spores out of the system. Then rinse/repeat again until now they are on every surface of every rock and starting to threaten the corals. I'm terrified to manually remove them again (and how can you see invisible spores, if you miss one mL of water it could have millions of spores in it). The only way I could manually remove is break the entire tank down and if I do that I'm probably fragging the colonies and buying a bigger tank and starting over.

So I ordered Brightwell Razor and Microbacter clean after reading about it and Vibrant and selecting the Razor after much deliberation. I know there is a risk as there are a lot of horror stories about dead corals, but I also found a lot of success stories and IME people are more likely to post negative things than positive and at this point I'm taking the chance.

My question here is, should I try to remove the bubble algae manually again before adding the Razor? Or just add the Razor and don't touch the algae just let the poison do its thing, and if it looks dead and dying then maybe tweezer/scrape/brush rocks as best as possible.

Should I add Emerald crabs to finish them off or to prevent their return? IME hermits have not interest and neither does my Kole Tang.

One spot foxface helped clear mine up.

 

[JayM]

I second the Foxface.

It was never really on my radar, but I was trying to decide what fish was gonna be the next, and possibly last addition. Around the same time I noticed a very small patch (thumbnail size) of bubble algae that I couldn’t get rid of manually. Kept coming back.

Enter the Foxface Lo.

Less than a week later, no sign of bubble algae.

 

[Mikeltee]

Vibrant took care of my issue within a week. I tried the natural predators for months. It turns out that Vibrant is just algaefix for 4x the cost. Try it. It's local and $10...

 

[Midrats]

Sailfin tangs have always kept it in check for me. They are readily available and reasonably priced.

 

[Jekyl]

Vibrant took care of my issue within a week. I tried the natural predators for months. It turns out that Vibrant is just algaefix for 4x the cost. Try it. It's local and $10...

This have been shown to be algicide without saying so on the bottle. Pretty sure they're not allowed to advertise here anymore.

 

[enricocoron]

I already ordered the Brightwell Razor and Microbacter clean instead of the vibrant which did seem to be an algaecide based on other threads.

I'd love to add a foxface or sailfin tang but in a 60 cube?

 

[Lavey29]

Get 3 pitho crabs and sit back with a beer.

 

[slingfox]

I already ordered the Brightwell Razor and Microbacter clean instead of the vibrant which did seem to be an algaecide based on other threads.

I'd love to add a foxface or sailfin tang but in a 60 cube?

Foxface is probably a bad idea for a 60 gallon cube unless you are okay with rehoming it later. The smallest Foxface is a One Spot. One of my LFS has a huge one (8 inches) that it uses in one of its large frag display tanks.

 

[enricocoron]

Are pitho crabs Emerald crabs?

 

[Lavey29]

Are pitho crabs Emerald crabs?

Similar but pithos seem to really like bubble algae and leave the corals completely alone.

 

[Thales]

So I've had a 60 gal cube set up 2 years now, am seeing really good corraline alage and coral growth, good and stable parameters, weekly 15% water change, 2 x a week sock filter change, everything I thought I should do and only issue was a little GHA here and there that I could pick out and just clean the glass over the last year. Then a few months ago wham, there appears the bubble algae, just a few tiny ones at first. No big deal, I watch the you tube video about using an airline hose to siphon them out, tweezers to dislodge and then try to siphon water around them to catch spores. A few weeks later, there are more, in new spots, guessing spores spread. Try again, more intensely trying to scrub the rocks and really siphon as much out as I can, change the sock an hour after to hopefully get spores out of the system. Then rinse/repeat again until now they are on every surface of every rock and starting to threaten the corals. I'm terrified to manually remove them again (and how can you see invisible spores, if you miss one mL of water it could have millions of spores in it). The only way I could manually remove is break the entire tank down and if I do that I'm probably fragging the colonies and buying a bigger tank and starting over.

So I ordered Brightwell Razor and Microbacter clean after reading about it and Vibrant and selecting the Razor after much deliberation. I know there is a risk as there are a lot of horror stories about dead corals, but I also found a lot of success stories and IME people are more likely to post negative things than positive and at this point I'm taking the chance.

My question here is, should I try to remove the bubble algae manually again before adding the Razor? Or just add the Razor and don't touch the algae just let the poison do its thing, and if it looks dead and dying then maybe tweezer/scrape/brush rocks as best as possible.

Should I add Emerald crabs to finish them off or to prevent their return? IME hermits have not interest and neither does my Kole Tang.

The idea that manually removing and popping bubble algae makes spores is mostly hooey.

For large bubble algae issues, besides a rabbitfish and tuxedo urchins if you can house them, get a marineland polishing filter and run that while you scrape and brush the rocks.

I would not use any of the anti algae products because there are too many reports of them messing up corals and throwing tanks into a spin. YMMV.

 

[Floyd-]

Im also battling bubbles in my 25g. With the tank being so small I cannot use fish and most crabs ive tried to use eat my corals. I ended up using ReefFlux at a 4x dose and it got 100% of the bubbles. Only issue was after about 2 months its started coming back again. Short of resetting the whole tank with new rocks and all im at a loss in my small tank. I clean handfuls out each week in the waterchange but it grows like a weed.

 

[Sophie"s mom]

Get 3 pitho crabs and sit back with a beer.

I second this thought! They are supposed to be the **** when it comes to bubble algae! No personal exp. Just have resd a lot.

 

[jkcoral]

Pitho crabs, hands down. A great solution that doesn’t require adding chemicals and other potions to your tank.

They actually eat bubble algae (unlike a lot of emeralds), eat a ton of it (unlike emeralds), are peaceful and not a threat to other creatures (unlike emeralds) and happen to look pretty neat, too.

 

[Seansea]

This loser climbs right on top of the bubble algae and my corals to boot. This dude is now double the size too with massive pinchers. Starting to get concerened.

Got with pithos

 

[Fritz05]

I have two pitho crabs of about one inch size each for a week. So far they have barely moved and are not at all interested in the bubble algae (or anything else, for that matter). I hope this will eventually change.

 

[Peter Houde]

I doubt your bubble algae problem could be worse than the one I used to have. I was just very judicious about gently prodding them off manually and either siphoning or netting them out. I removed the live rock from the tank to do it when it was practical to do so, but it almost never was. Sure, some broke and probably shed spores, but I just kept at it. I thought I'd never be rid of them, and then one day I suddenly realized I was. Now, once every several months when I least expect it I dislodge a tiny one with a glassware brush while deep cleaning some deep hidden crevice. Like everything else, I guess nothing really disappears completely. But for all practical purposes, they do. I rid myself of bristle worms (really, the snails did) and Aptasia (just scraped away the few that first appeared) just the same. I don't think you need chemicals. I also never found livestock that would reliably eat any of these undesirables (I do have tangs and a one spot, emerald (or emerald-like) crabs, and at times pithos crabs and lettuce 'nudibranchs'). If anything, those critters that eat bubble algae are probably going to rupture them and spread the spores.

 

[MBruun]

I have struggled with bubble algaes for a year or two.
My Foxface and Purple tang eats a lot but far from all. I have spend hours scraping and siphoning thousands of buble algaes. Today I have almost none. I pop and scrape like 1-200 hundred perhaps once a months, especially on places where the fish can't get them and when they annouy the corals.
What really helped, I think, was lowering the nitrate to below 5ppm.

 

[Doctorgori]

bubble algae, I have it in all my tanks…Peroxide and a hypo needle works wonders, so does manual removal, so do urchins …..

btw blasphemy, but Vibrant did work for me also