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Bubble algae- losing the war....

CookieJar

CookieJar

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I have a serious bubble algae problem. I've had bubble algae for at least 3 years, and every time I do a monthly water change I try and siphon out as many as I can see and have access to. While this always puts a dent in the visible bubble algae, more always seems to be growing and in more places. It's gotten to the point over the past year that manual removal is only done for the big, obvious ones, but the hundreds and thousands of small ones are starting to overrun my tank.

I'm considering the 'nuclear' option, which is taking out my favorite corals and leaving in a frag tank, and remove all the rockwork in my current tank that I've spent countless hours perfecting. Then start with new rocks and hopefully be bubble algae free. While that sounds good in theory I'm not so sure I can't prevent 1 bubble from getting back into the tank or having a spore floating in the water turn into another bubble algae and the problem starting all over again.

I'm looking for advice on what people do to deal with it, and if it's possible to keep a tank bubble algae free? Do people just live with it? If I loaded up on an army of 20-50 emerald crabs might that work or has anyone heard of if enough emerald crabs will conquer it? Are there any other crabs/ creatures that will eat it? I'd be great if God made a fish that ate bubble algae, but I've never heard of one.

Some other pertinent info:
I run carbon & phosban
I have 2 emerald crabs that haven't made a dent
My bioload is small for my tank size (250+ gallons) and I feed a light amount- less than 1 frozen cube a day.
Hair algae always grows but is eaten by tangs so it's hardly visible.

Some pics for reference:




 
How's your nitrates?

Bubble algae suck. I have some but I believe my refugium with MH lights holds them in check. I figure the cheato and other algae in the fuge competes with the BA for nutrients. I suck them out of the display when I see them.

I've also seen my foxface nibble on BA, only when he's hungry.
 
Haven't checked for nitrates. i do have a good sized refugium w/ ball of chaeto. Has your foxface eaten the bubbles or just picked at them? i've never seen my foxfaces or tangs pick at them, but I've always fed mine enough so they're not too hungry.
 
My foxfaces will eat them if I put them in the water column.

I got to a really bad state a couple of years ago and essentially came to need to take out all of the rock manually scrub it sown and take out the bubble algae and reaquascape my tank. Unfortunately, if it is as bad as you say, that may be your only option at this point.

Oh and run lots and lots of carbon.
 
In my old tank I had a really bad infestation...I bought the emerald crabs, but I had to squeeze/remove the larger spheres. The crabs only eat the smaller spheres. Start removing the larger spheres and you’ll see a difference… If they can’t get a grip on the sphere then they can’t eat it.

-Gregory
 
My advice is lots and lots of sea urchins. I recommend 1 for every 20 gallons. They will utterly destroy all of bubble algae in no time. The steinhart does this for some of their smaller tanks by rotating a sea urchin between them.
 
bookfish said:
Yup, foxfaces will learn to eat it well enough to eventually clean it all up. Also the orange spotted rabbitfish I have eats it.
Click to expand...

this is encouraging news! To teach the foxface to eat it do you need to starve him or pull the bubble algae off the rocks and let them float around in the water column?
 
Not ime, just keep one for a while, they have nothing better to do all day than nibble on stuff but it seems to take them a while to learn to like it. I had that issue with peanut butter btw.
 
bookfish said:
Not ime, just keep one for a while, they have nothing better to do all day than nibble on stuff but it seems to take them a while to learn to like it. I had that issue with peanut butter btw.
Click to expand...
lol! I was the same way with vegetables. :D
 
Try hermit crabs, I do not know if a certain type is better at it. I presently have 12(I think) Blue Legged Hermit Crabs that cleared out some bubble algae recently. I am offering a hermit crab on this link.
http://www.bareefers.org/home/node/10894
 
I had a similar problem but spent a lot of time manually siphoning off the bubbles on the rock. Finally I relented and got a foxface which absolutely inhaled every bubble it saw. Since adding that particular fish I never saw another bubble the rest of the time I had the tank in place.

Currently the foxface is in with a couple tangs in my prop system until the new tank is up and going. I'm not sure how big your tank is, but if you needed one to mow through your bubbles you could either borrow mine for a bit or I'd be willing to sell it. I think it's about 4 - 4.5 inches total length, so while not tiny, it's not too large and has been a model citizen.
 
Thanks Robin, I might take you up on that offer. I bought a tiny 1-spot foxface around a month ago but he is in my frag tank. I put in a bubble infested rock in the frag tank last night and will see if he eats any bubbles over the next week or so. If not I'll contact you about your foxface.
 
Bill the other thing you are going to need to consider is that there is likely a size limit to what they will actually eat. That is they will likely not eat the big ones and may not do much to the stuff hidden in cracks or difficult to get to.

If it is as bad as you say it is, you are going to still have to do lots of manual work to get it to a controllable state and then let the foxface and emeralds work their magic.

Does your current foxface eat nori or other algaes now?
 
Bill, I think a combo of foxface and emerald crabs would be your best bet. If you could get your hands on a know bubble killer foxface like Robins and a large amount of emeralds say 6 to 10 crabs they would slowly fade away.
 
My foxface eats all algae and is constantly looking for food like Jim said, sadly though it has developed a taste for green slimer, blue tipped green slimer, and now my austera, I must commence operation extraction.
 
Yeah, I realize that I'll have to still manually pull the bubble off, and that's no problem since I've been doing that for the better part of 2 years. But if I can get a foxface or one of my tangs to eat a certain size bubble that'd be fine with me. I can live with the tiny ones that I can't get to, and the big ones are easy enough to remove. My idea to train my small foxface is to put a popped bubble with the nori and maybe that way he'll associate bubble algae with a good food source. The foxface is so small and still seems a little shy, so he's only nipping at algae sporatically and not yet throughout the tank. If he doesn't take to training, and the tangs don't take to training, then I'll have to look for a proven 'bubble eater'. :)
 
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