The Great Bubble Algae War

[Double monti 61]

Had some I had removed most manually sometimes they would come off easily anyway as for pitho crabs I had small growths of algae and ordered one and yes it definitely ate the algae but for some reason it liked to hide itself in the sand and would burrow below coral I have on the sand bed tossing them around it would add small pieces of substrate to itself and rest.in the sand bed hidden coming out to look for food I did not leave it in the tank it was like a bulldozer at times.

 

[56longroof]

How large is your tank? I starting to see a few bubble algae pop up so I likely need to get ahead of it!

150 gallon. It took that many to notice an improvement. And I didnt have alot of it to deal with. I just wanted to get ahead of it. I dont see any in the tank now.

 

[bobnicaragua]

I have a foxface and sailfin tang. Haven’t seen bubble algae in my tank for years.

 

[Maxx]

I had great results with the Doliatus Rabbitfish I had in two separate systems.

 

[bobnicaragua]

My tangs and foxface don’t graze much when they are really well fed. If the fish are fat, you might cut back feeding a few days and see what happens.

 

[X-37B]

I control it in my 150 with 8 emerald crabs. The only place it grows is in the overflow and on the 2 powerheads. I fought it for 1.5 years due to a rouge mantis, i.e. manual removal.
Now that its gone I added 8 emeralds and its hard to find any.
It will pop up on rocks but wont be there long. My system is mostly acros.

 

[YSreef]

Following

 

[spsick]

I see a direct correlation when I dose ammonia or use a salt that contains iron. What brand of salt are you using?

 

[BubbleAlgaeFarmer]

I regularly clean up what i can get at to do my part. Thus far the pithos seems to be a bust. Hopefully it’s just eating stuff i can’t see. Holding out hope

How is the war against the bubble algae going now?

The bubble algae remains undefeated. I don’t think the pithos has done anything.

 

[69cam]

Pithos never did anything for me, for the 2 months they were alive...

 

[NeutronMan]

Nothing ever touched my bubble algae. I just keep plucking away at it…

Considering Algeafix. Wanting to see more success stories from others with Acroporas.

 

[bobnicaragua]

Nothing ever touched my bubble algae. I just keep plucking away at it…

Considering Algeafix. Wanting to see more success stories from others with Acroporas.

I have a Foxface and Sailfin tang in my acro tank. I may have a lot of problems, but bubble algae isn’t one!

 

[X-37B]

Nothing ever touched my bubble algae. I just keep plucking away at it…

Considering Algeafix. Wanting to see more success stories from others with Acroporas.

I dosed AF in my 15g. It had some bubble algae but mostly a large amount of lettuce algae.
30+ corals, mixed reef. I killed it all and I have not seen either since it was dosed. It did take around 3+ weeks to kill it all.
Remove as much as you can before starti.g to dose and follow the directions. I dosed 1ml every 3 days like recommended.
It had no negative effects on my system.
Note: it does cause your system to use less alk so keep an eye on it. It will go back to normal after your done.

 

[69cam]

I dosed AF in my 15g. It had some bubble algae but mostly a large amount of lettuce algae.
30+ corals, mixed reef. I killed it all and I have not seen either since it was dosed. It did take around 3+ weeks to kill it all.
Remove as much as you can before starti.g to dose and follow the directions. I dosed 1ml every 3 days like recommended.
It had no negative effects on my system.
Note: it does cause your system to use less alk so keep an eye on it. It will go back to normal after your done.

Did you dose at recommended dosage?

 

[X-37B]

Did you dose at recommended dosage?

Yes 1ml per 10g's. That system holds 9.5g's.

 

[BubbleAlgaeFarmer]

Algae fix is my next attempt. I give up on natural solutions. Nobody wants to eat this stuff. I went away for vacation for just one week and i’m overrun.

 

[NeutronMan]

Algae fix is my next attempt. I give up on natural solutions. Nobody wants to eat this stuff. I went away for vacation for just one week and i’m overrun.

I’m about ready to try this, too. It’s getting out of control and I’ve never seen anything eat it.

 

[slingfox]

It looks like I got the bubble algae in my 120g display—at least for now. What I did was add emerald crabs in groups of 4. 4 crabs didn’t make a dent. Same with 8. When I got to 12 then some bubble algae started to disappear. I complemented that with scraping the bubbles I could see into a siphon hose during water changes. I did the scraping twice two weeks apart. Now I barely see any bubble algae. I hope the status quo holds but only time will tell.

Key learning: Adding a lot of emerald crabs + manual scraping seems to be working so far. I was prepared to go to 20+ emerald crabs if needed since each only covers a very small area of rockwork from what I can tell.

 

[56longroof]

Algae fix is my next attempt. I give up on natural solutions. Nobody wants to eat this stuff. I went away for vacation for just one week and i’m overrun.

I read that someone used Reeflux to kill of bubble algea. It took a extended amount of time but the results were pretty impressive. Ill look and see if I can find the thread.

 

[56longroof]

Found it.
Killing Bubble Algae with Reef HD Reef Flux | Reef2Reef https://share.google/6Pirxp3ZFiRNQQ0OD