Concerned Pest algaes ?

[jefferythewind]

i wouldn't be too worried about bubble algae myself. Why is it so frightening?

[Jakesaw]

14 minutes ago, jefferythewind said:

i wouldn't be too worried about bubble algae myself. Why is it so frightening?

Spreading too much into tank. 

 

Started with 1 frag, I removed it, found it on another frag, removed it, Found some HUGE bubbles on rock in back of tank took it out to remove them and found little bubbles everwhere on the rock.

 

Now seeing some on one of my main rock structures.  

 

It's a pest algae, I don't want it to be hte main feature of my aquarium.  I know it can be controlled by Emerald crab, but they also spread spores in the water while they eat the bubble algae, so as soon as you take out the emerald crab - it'll likely grow everywhere some more. 

 

Maybe I'm a newbie overreacting, but it feels like the right thing to do at the moment. 

[jefferythewind]

i mean a lot of things that people say are pests are just naturally occurring things that we just choose not to like in our tanks. I have a background population of bubble algae that never really gets out of control. I'll take out the big ones from time to time but I don't think it deserves pulling your rocks and cleaning them with chemicals. That's gonna change the composition of your tank. I guess it is your preference if you want to eradicate it but I'm just saying it shouldn't not be considered any kind of emergency. 

 

Grow corals and no one will care about the little pieces of algae.

[Jakesaw]

6 hours ago, jefferythewind said:

I guess it is your preference if you want to eradicate it but I'm just saying it shouldn't not be considered any kind of emergency. 

 

 

Being new to the hobby I'm learning as I go.  The bubble algae is newest curve ball to me.  I let all the rest of algaes come and go and be managed by now snails & crabs but I also manually pull out hair algae daily ad I let my new snails catch up. 

 

Besides adding an emerald crab haven't seen any suggestion as to these bubble algaes going away on their own, and they have been spreading like a weed in my tank the past month with other algaes since I raised my nutrient levels from " stuck at zero "

 

 

[mcarroll]

Providing some control during an algae growth spurt is the correct response – and your tank is finally getting a "nice case" of the uglies going.  🙂   Just don't go too crazy with the "nuking everything" idea.  LOL.

 

Make sure you use this as an excuse to reexamine your CUC, tank flow, feeding habits, coral and anything else you can imagine as related to algae growth so you can make corrections or improvements.

 

E.g.  Is your flow weak and depositing detritus on the rocks?  Are the lights too white?  Do you need to feed smaller quantities more often?  Is one of your foods the one contributing most?  Do you actually needs a few more hermits?  Could you add a few more snails?  Should there be some more coral?  Are nutrients still testing 0.00 sometimes? Etc, etc.

[Jakesaw]

Lights are good - Only got Vipar on 1 or 2 setting for White and blue around 35 percent

 

20/20 hindsight tells me I could have prevented this with proper snails earlier - we agree.  Back filling is a bit more challenging.  The walls are slowly clearing, but the rocks may be taking up the extra nutrients as a side effect. 

 

Flow is good - and I think my 3 hermits are fine.  

 

Since I took that small rock / coral skeleton out, I've cut down feeding a bit b/c I removed some bacteria from tank.  Both my Euphylia seems very happy, one of my candy canes is thriving - Newer Purple candy cane is on an o.k. and watch category.  May have some polyp tissue damage, but that's not new.  I think it'll be fine over time. 

 

I'll be testing a bit later to see where Nutrients are hanging.   

 

 

Re: The coral skeleton I removed to treat, I put Hydrogen Peroxide 3 percent direct to anything green and let it sit and fizzle for 3 minutes.  Then rinsed in S/W and have it soaking in salt water now that I'll change a few times before I put it back in tank. 

 

 

 

 

[jefferythewind]

Good luck with it! I have the Vipar Spectra as well, been using it for almost 2.5 years now. For me, I definitely have a lot of different types of algae. The kind of algae that has been the worst for me is the real like hairy kind that becomes detached easily. It then often gets caught it in this one acropora that I have, and eventually it has really attached to the coral in a couple places. I have bubble algae in little clusters in nooks and crannies, but it really doesn't seem to bother the corals at all. I had 7 to 8 snails at one point, 4 turbos and 4 "turban" snails, and I had a lot of algea, they didn't seem to make much of a dent in the problem, and then most of them have died off in about a year's time. Only have 1 of each left now. So I don't really want to add more. However the last batch of blue leg hermit crabs has lasted really long, I put 10 in there a year ago, and still have at least 8. I'm wondering if they have been able to reproduce. But they can't control all the algea either. 

 

Having the corals cover all the rocks helps a lot, no place for the algae to attach.