Bubble algae nightmare

[Mardukumz]

Hey so I’m sure everyone in their reefing career has experienced bubble algae but sadly my tank has been overrun by it. Does anyone have any experience on combating this nightmare?

I suction it out and more appear, I try to be careful not popping them but more come. Any tips?


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[Vstryker]

Emerald crabs have worked wonders for me in all the tanks ive had. For my current 150g, got 8 huge ones and after a few weeks almost all gone

 

[Mardukumz]

Emerald crabs have worked wonders for me in all the tanks ive had. For my current 150g, got 8 huge ones and after a few weeks almost all gone

I’ve got a 25 gallon, how many do I need to clear this stuff? It’s like all over


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[MFlores888]

If the algae is on the rocks you can bring them over and I'll have my fox face eat it off the rocks. He loves bubble algae, should be fully clean in 5 minutes or so.

If its on the sand and all over the tank I don't know but I've heard some people say that mollies eat bubble algae. Again I am not 100% sure as I know they eat algae but not sure about bubble algae

 

[sharkbait]

Emerald crabs from reef cleaners

 

[Vstryker]

For a 25g, try starting off with 4 emerald crabs

 

[Quotes]

When I first started, I came across some epic proportions of bubble algae in my 20g nano tank.

I read through different forums that popping bubble algae may not be as bad as once thought. I had not experienced any outbreaks when popping the bubble algae. Maybe others can chime in.

What I ended up eventually doing was pulling out all the rocks/equipment with bubble algae out of the tank, scrubbed them clean of the bubble algae, and then clean saltwater rinse.

Before I put the rocks/equipment back, I loosened up any bubble algae and suctioned it out of the tank. Then I added a few female emerald crabs into the tank after I had finished. Ive been bubble free since then.

 

[laverda]

Remove the rock, scrub them off, rinse with salt water, then pour some Hydrogen Peroxide over the infected areas. The H2O2will kill the remaining bits. It will also kill brittle stars and copepods.

 

[Mardukumz]

When I first started, I came across some epic proportions of bubble algae in my 20g nano tank.

I read through different forums that popping bubble algae may not be as bad as once thought. I had not experienced any outbreaks when popping the bubble algae. Maybe others can chime in.

What I ended up eventually doing was pulling out all the rocks/equipment with bubble algae out of the tank, scrubbed them clean of the bubble algae, and then clean saltwater rinse.

Before I put the rocks/equipment back, I loosened up any bubble algae and suctioned it out of the tank. Then I added a few female emerald crabs into the tank after I had finished. Ive been bubble free since then.

Holy crap man that sounds like quite a bit of a task. To pull all the rocks out and scrub everything clean I risk losing my corals and stuff, is that safe??


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[b1van]

I used vibrant (the one that’s reef safe) a while back and seemed to have combatted the bubble algae issue I used to have. If you follow the instructions correctly you should be ok. I heard foxfaces are also a good natural algae/bubble algae eater but u have to keep an eye on them because they do nip at ur coral sometimes. But Goodluck!

 

[Reeferkcp]

Vibrant works

 

[Quotes]

Holy crap man that sounds like quite a bit of a task. To pull all the rocks out and scrub everything clean I risk losing my corals and stuff, is that safe??


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There was some work involved with what I did. I didn’t have any corals attached to my rocks at the time of my infestation so it wasn’t particularly risky for me to scrub them. If I were you, I would still scrub off the bubble algae and trying my best not to scrub the corals.

I have read about vibrant before and it’s success stories. But use it at your own discretion. It was found out that vibrant contains algaecide that the company never advertised on their bottle.

 

[Kobin]

I found that you have to manually remove the bigger pieces of bubble algae if you were to use emerald crabs. They tend to go for the smaller pieces of bubble algae. I introduced 2 into my 45g months back and haven't seen any bubble algae since. I think 2-4 should be good for a 25g depending on how much bubble algae you have

 

[wsoldier]

My 73G was overrun with bubble algae... I was able to clear up my tank with 3 LARGE emerald crabs in a matter of weeks... I had to remove them after since they picked the tank clean. Avoid the small crabs since they won't do much IMO.

 

[laverda]

Holy crap man that sounds like quite a bit of a task. To pull all the rocks out and scrub everything clean I risk losing my corals and stuff, is that safe??


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Its not that hard. They come off pretty easily, but some will pop. The rinse with Hydrogen peroxide will kill any bits that remain. It should not harm your corals as they only need to be out of the water for less than 5 min. Most are unaffected buy a little hydrogen peroxide.

 

[Dipan00]

I had a really bad bubble algae out break. and While I still have a little its no where near a plague in my system now. Only thing I did different was started running a UV sterilizer. Not sure that is what did it or not but thought I would throw that out at you as an option to try. I have the 55w Jebao UV also.

 

[Smite]

Vibrant is hit or miss, I wouldn't call it reef safe. I'm pretty sure someone on R2R (Maybe Facebook) did a breakdown on it and found it to just be an algaecide. Basically a rebottled and labeled bottle of API algae-fix

I did use it on a horrible BA outbreak in my 100g a few years ago. It killed it off so quick I knew there had to be more than just bacteria strains in there. I did lose a tang on one treatment, not sure if it was coincidental or not now.

 

[b1van]

Vibrant is hit or miss, I wouldn't call it reef safe. I'm pretty sure someone on R2R (Maybe Facebook) did a breakdown on it and found it to just be an algaecide. Basically a rebottled and labeled bottle of API algae-fix

I did use it on a horrible BA outbreak in my 100g a few years ago. It killed it off so quick I knew there had to be more than just bacteria strains in there. I did lose a tang on one treatment, not sure if it was coincidental or not now.

I don’t know about how vibrant works in other tanks, but from my experience with it it was pretty efficient, however it did kill off some inverts and caused some fluctuations but overall I used it as a last resort type of thing. There are though two bottles of vibrant that I know of, one that claims reef safe and another one I think if you only have livestock. I second this though it can be a hit or miss, it will wipe your algae but it could wipe out other things so approach with caution

 

[Mardukumz]

Thanks everyone for your input and suggestions, I’ll look into vibrant, I did have it a while back but learned that it also kills off beneficial bacteria for corals to grow so I stopped using it and started dosing nitrates. I’ll try it again though and I’ll buy 2 more crabs, currently got 2 in there.


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[Lou]

It's hit or miss with emeralds. I had a small emerald for my 10 gallon nem tank. It went to town on all bubble algae. Tried the same with my 80 gallon mixed reef, mixture of large and small emeralds. They barely put a dent into the algae and I started noticing missing zoas. They tend to go for the higher end ones. The last straw was when they went for my goniopora garden. Not all emeralds are reef safe. Also, always seem to have a Dino outbreak after using Vibrant.