Jump to content
Pod Your Reef

Bubble Algae Advice, please.


holy carp

Recommended Posts

On 11/08 I picked up some frags at the Manhattan Reefs frag swap. I don't have a QT, so I dipped everything in Revive and inspected and then put them in the tank. In a small cluster of Bam Bams, I noticed a single bubble algae ball a couple hours later. I promptly removed the frag, carefully plucked the ball without popping it, scraped the area gently (it was on the zoa base, not the plug) and re-dipped it.

 

Optimistically, I put it back in the tank. Unfortunately, last night I noticed the base of my elegance coral had some bubbles on it.

 

Bubble%20Algae%20on%20Elegance_zpspvs4fv

 

They are still pretty small, so I'm wondering what the best plan of attack is. The rock is easily removable, and right now the elegance is the only coral on it, but that coral never closes - it's fully open 24/7. I have an emerald crab in the sump, since he attacks fish, but I don't know if it's worth putting this rock down there (I'm reluctant to bring him back up to the DT). Should I rather just take the rock out and pluck and pray? I've also read you can dip a rock in hydrogen peroxide or pour it over the affected area... not sure if that's safe on the elegance. What would be the dipping protocol? Dilute, full strenth, time, etc... I don't even know how long you can leave a catalaphyllia out of water.

 

In the front view, you can see that this elegance has an open skeleton (was that way when I got it) and you can see its inner tissues. The bubble algae seems to have attached to that tissue as well as to the skeleton.

 

(And I know people are sensitive to plant references for corals, but how cool are those 'roots' affixing the skeleton to the rocks? I never saw those like that since they are mainly on the back side. You can actually see them growing over some coralline.)

Link to comment

the peroxide doesn't have to be anyones long term solution, the mere benefit of it is we can predict what it does regarding safety 100% of the time. the outcome regarding fix ranges, not the safety. for sure its a full strength application from a new unopened bottle lift coral or rock out, dribble on the target, leave out in the air 2 mins no harm to the coral, I do 15, and put back in the tank.

 

I would actually remove the valonia outside of the tank, and clean the scraped area with peroxide this invader is prolific reproducer inside tank so both its physical removal and peroxide treatment of the area it was adhered to is indicated for external work

 

in this small of a run you w be ok, valonia is only bad when its allowed to cake up. simple removal treatment

 

in every peroxide case regarding nanos, we can keep it off the corals simply by being creative. it w burn the algae well

 

even if you did get some straight 3% on the coral, no long term harm but its easy not to. the benefit of using the peroxide where the valonia once was, not on the actual valonia, is that you've exported the reproductive unit from the tank and used the peroxide to catch any leftovers hopefully. I have gotten a single bubble of red valonia in my tank before and I just drained the water, hit the area w peroxide, then let it die inside but the above stated is safer.

Link to comment

another neat long term tie in for your reef

 

if you google

valonia problems in the reef tank, or valonia take over reef tank, you see 100% of tanks about to be taken down or fully frustrating to the owner and they passed right through the gate you are passing, right through it.

 

They saw a valonia or two, and waited. some people with thick rock stacks have them up under rocks and didn't know, for tanks with that level of uninspectable area quarantine is required, usually not the issues w nanos we can see most of things

 

Even if you didn't use peroxide and dribbled tech m on them direct, at least you'd be acting on first visual confirmation. every form of tank invasion in reefing follows this gate, opt out or opt in to the invasion. My own tank lost over half the diverse corals id brought up for 7+ yrs due to this specific rule, nobody eludes it.

 

I put a red mushroom in a tank full of packed in rock where no lower surfaces were accessible, ever, that became 200 red mushrooms. new math equation of the millennia-->that seems to be a recipe for invasion -- I paid the price. only a full tank take down and scrubbing worked and that could have been avoided earlier in planning the aquascape access.

 

nowadays I part my whole reef out on a dinner plate when cleaning, I could inspect the up underside of the parts of my rock that sit on the deep sand bed if I wanted to

Link to comment

Thanks again, Brandon.

 

I'm kind of surprised dipping doesn't seem to do anything against these pests and problems... So far, in my experience, dipping does NOT kill flatworms, fanworms, bristle worms, amphipods, isopods, any kind of algae, almost any kind of spores or eggs, vermetid snails, digitate hydroids, or boloceroides mcmurrichi. Makes me wonder what the dip actually does kill... Nonetheless, I'm actually pretty amazed about these appearing so quickly, since I promptly removed the original hitchhiker outside the tank without popping it and re-dipped. Perhaps the dip irritated it enough to start releasing spores right away, but from what I've read, it sounds like the bubble needs to burst in order to release spores. Fortunately, using my loupe, I found no other locations affected by this algae.

 

(I was reading this article, though I was unclear about the specific species, since the lower one visible from the rear looks oblong)

 

So my plan of attack will be:

  1. removing the rock (carefully trying to get that catalaphyllia to retract into its skelly)
  2. carefully plucking the green balls and scraping vicinity (out of water)
  3. applying new hydrogen peroxide 3% directly to the affected areas (out of water)
  4. waiting 2-3 minutes (out of water)
  5. rinsing in SW
  6. and returning to the DT.

 

I think I'll plan to do this tomorrow morning and follow it with an immediate 5 gal water change. Did I miss anything?

Link to comment

no truly that's what id do to my reef if it was the same popup of a few bubbles. I think even if we didn't get your valonia, the mere access you have to the rock allows for other options, the old method of pure hands off for good and take a chance with what springs up should be banished from practice lol

 

from what you listed above its harmless to coral to attempt and that's to me the real concern, how many safe attack options can we employ. before being shown peroxide, and theres a vid of this on my utube page called 'burning red algae in the pico reef' I used to use a grill lighter to literally flame burn things in my reef. I knew about forced exclusion but didn't have better tools, like a caveman with his first fire lol.

 

peroxide then ushered in to save the dang day thanks @reefmiser for showing me

Link to comment

1) Remove the rocks from your tank

2) Throw the rocks away

3) Buy new rocks

 

I say that partially in jest -- Bubble algae isn't like your standard green hair algae etc that you can control through nutrient export. It seem like once it is in the tank it is in the tank for good.

 

I consider it one of many lessons learned on a nano that I can avoid in a future larger reef =P

 

It is also amazing what some stores sell. I have been in coral shops and the frags are covered in bubble algae etc - no wonder it is so easy to get this crap in your tank. I know that is how I got it. I had no idea what it was or how serious it was. My tank had no algae issues so when I had some on a frag I scraped it off and figured I was good to go.

 

Now - I would not consider buying a frag that had visible bubble algae growing on it unless I got them to discount the frag and I had a QT tank I could leave it in =)

 

I have had bubble algae in my tank for a long time, can never get rid of it completely.

 

I use a dental pick to scrape it off rocks when I change the water. Just yesterday I redid rockwork and took that as an opportunity to remove rocks and clean them with a toothbrush. It is all just short term fixes however - once that crap gets in the tank it is hard to really get rid of in my experience.

 

Some people claim emerald crabs eat it. Nothing else seems to touch it.

Link to comment

that's universal exclusion control, opting out of the import substrate altogether. one might acid burn and recycle it elsewhere, or give to someone who might as well (I wouldn't waste the time)

If the single uniting rule among all one million algae wrecked tanks on the internet is purposefully leaving a target in the tank to mature, then that mode must be considered as an alternate. how can valonia take over if its simply removed along w suspect rock? fair option. valonia has wrecked tanks beyond peroxide's ability to fix it, id rate it a strong #2 or 3 worst potential tank invader. Some don't even want to take a chance with it, cant be faulted. If I saw neomeris id use universal

Link to comment

I just manually remove it since its a nano. Take the rock out, tweezer it off, wash the area with peroxide/h2o solution. Done.

 

If feasible, I always remove frags from their plugs/rocks before they go into the DT.

Link to comment

So I was reviewing some old photos that I had - I believe I may have spotted a small piece of bubble algae on the affected catalaphyllia from a month-old picture. Perhaps my blame on the new frag from the MR frag swap on 11/8 was premature.

 

Interestingly, this catalaphyllia's skeleton was the only area affected by the bubble algae (that I saw so far). The bubble algae were actually INSIDE the skeleton. I got at it as best I could with tweezers, but I didn't have anything that could reach all the way inside the skeleton. I have an oral syringe that puts out a pretty thin strong stream, so I used it to shoot straight 3% H2O2 into the affected area of the coral's skeleton. A number of bubbles flushed out. I'll post a couple photos when I'm home tonight.

 

A few things that really surprised me:

 

  • The skeleton had an opening that was not there when I glued it to the rock. The way these things grow their skeleton is an enigma to me. Why would the skeleton break open holes? This happened in an area close to the rock to which it's attached, so it made it extremely difficult to get in with tweezers, but I could see a small cluster of bubble algae 'grapes' inside the coral.
  • The coral has been glued to that rock in the same place for almost 5 months, so it's hard to imagine the algae came in with that particular frag. If it did, how long can it stay dormant? If it came in later, why would it be all over that one coral - most of the spots where the algae was get very little if any light, since they are all under the mantle and tentacles of the coral.
  • I found two distinctly different types of bubbles on the coral - some where very round, almost perfectly spherical, while others were very oblong, almost like the types of balloons used to make balloon animals.

Should I repeat this H2O2 shower as a prophylactic for a while? i.e. weekly with my next X water changes?

Link to comment

it is simply harmless to repeat it a thousand times. many instances I just squirted 35% into my reef only to drive it harder, it was well past the algae stage and it only seemed right my tank should be tested on first before recommending it to others, I grossly exceeded the required use only to test bacterial nonresponse.

 

I for sure 100% would not be surprised if valonia share traits among actual boring algae that chemically dissolve caco3 and might have a much easier time on thin septa from a coral vs the craggy live rocks they cling to. an actual acid lysing vacuole within them would not surprise me and a botany reference would have to be consulted to see if they have boring traits. for once im not google spell checking lol its either that or boaring not sure, meaning whatever seats in and melts away materials to gain a foothold.

Link to comment

Well, I repeated it again, just for good measure. The rock has turned back to a white color, so I assume it's really working well against many types of algae (unfortunately, even coralline).

 

I also found one more lone bubble on the base of the torch coral. I did the same, but also a 2 minute soak in RODI up to the base of the torch skeleton, but not including the soft tissue to minimize stress.

 

I put both back in and they bubbled for an half hour and then the corals opened right back up.

 

Do you mean to say that you filled your tank/bowl with 35% H2O2? Was that just temporary before a waterchange?

 

Anyway, thanks for the tip - this seems to be performing well for now. I'll keep my eye on it, though.

Link to comment

The fact you took any action gives you a strong chance they can be beaten, but if allowed to invade often gain a long term foothold, nice early action here.

 

Regarding that powerful 35% it was only a few mils at a time, but that's in only one gallon. For comparison, this is about five mls of 35% injected into a tank with a live CB shrimp and the going safe rate assumed for 3% left in tank is one mil per ten gallons.

 

Yes water changes came after exposure the reason for doing that was to acclimate the tank to doses beyond what normal tanks would need so that we could establish freer trials for 3% but still not kill off my tank within the testing, some of these corals in my bowl are 14 yrs old.

 

When peroxide first started, people (including published reef sages who still disagree w it) thought 3% was as deadly an antibiotic one could put in the tank. Turns out it has zero microbiological impact pending counter proof and fifty pages of loss/recycling to offset our safety docs.

 

This was one of my runs trying to burn off red mushrooms with 35%

Link to comment

Wow, that 35% is intense stuff. I'm impressed it didn't kill the corallimorph, but I guess it works on algae not corals, luckily. I read somewhere that some sps are sensitive to h2o2 more than other corals, so I'm still cautious.

 

I misunderstood before, I thought you meant dosing with 35%, didn't realize you meant spot treating with it.

 

This is a handy tool to have in the arsenal. I just gave it a test drive on a small clump of GHA among my green buttons. It must have come with the rock I glued on, because it just grows off that spot. It's almost like a troll doll head right at the peak of the rock.

il_570xN.307678698.jpg

 

So we'll see how that works.

 

One of the nice things about a nano tank like this is being easily able to lift any rock out to treat it.

 

I'm using one of these syringes, which seems to work well to target very specific spots:

31CpbQIIaQL._SY300_.jpg

 

 

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recommended Discussions

×
×
  • Create New...