Green Bubble Alage

[Toomanymatts]

Came back from vacation to bubble algae starting to sprout up. Phosphates are high, everything else is inline. Bad part is the emerald crab died. Maybe not getting enough pellets/flakes from the auto feeder? Any who... Does this seem like a decent enough plan of attack:

1. Pull rocks with bubble algae and pluck of with tweezers.
2. Scrub the rest of the rock in salt water
3. Leave rock in a bucket for 3 days with no light. Powerhead, airstone, heater
4. Scrub again, rinse, put back in tank.

At the moment I only have CUC in the tank. But starting Sunday I will be adding the first of 3 fish that finished up QT.

Oh, picking up protein skimmer today.

[Pjanssen]

scrub the rocks with peroxide after removing bubbles.

[seabass]

Remember that problems get harder to address with more livestock in the tank.  You might want delay your plans to add fish today.

 

I'm curious as to how your rocks got bubble algae.  Was this rock in another tank?  Or was the live rock taken from the ocean?  Maybe the algae came in on a snail's shell.

 

Emerald crabs tend to eat bubble algae; however, in the process, they can often help spread it.  If the rock is very porous, the crabs (and you) might never be able to manually clear it.

 

I'm not sure, but this might be an ideal time to use the algaecide Vibrant.  It has a good reputation for killing Valonia.  However, it can also kill lower life forms (like pods and micro brittle stars, and even some corals); which would be less of a problem if the rock started off dry.

 

Yeah, I'd hit any area that you removed the bubble algae from with peroxide.  That should help stop it from returning.  Try not to pop the bubbles.  I know that it has been speculated that this will release algae spores into to water, which could end up spending the problem.

[Toomanymatts]

I'm not sure the source.  It's live rock for a lfs. Bought it in Feb.  Had a dino issue. Got that cleared up and this green hard to scrub off algae grew in.  It never really did anything further than be green sitting there. I thought it was a phase. 

I pulled all the rocks that had it, picked it off over the sink, scubbed it good and it's sitting in a bucket with air and a heater. I'm thinking  a one two punch, kill off the bubble, but also the green stuff.  I plan to scrub and change the water each day until it's gone.  And put it back in.  Mean while today did a deep clean if the chambers of the 13.5.  Chamber 2 had about an inch of crud at the bottom. That can't help.  Putting protein skimmer in #2 and making a filter box for #1. Hopefully that clears that up a bit.  Also. Noticed the pump is really slow. So plan to clean that up and see if it helps flow through the chambers. 

20 hours ago, seabass said:

Remember that problems get harder to address with more livestock in the tank.  You might want delay your plans to add fish today.

 

I'm curious as to how your rocks got bubble algae.  Was this rock in another tank?  Or was the live rock taken from the ocean?  Maybe the algae came in on a snail's shell.

 

Emerald crabs tend to eat bubble algae; however, in the process, they can often help spread it.  If the rock is very porous, the crabs (and you) might never be able to manually clear it.

 

I'm not sure, but this might be an ideal time to use the algaecide Vibrant.  It has a good reputation for killing Valonia.  However, it can also kill lower life forms (like pods and micro brittle stars, and even some corals); which would be less of a problem if the rock started off dry.

 

Yeah, I'd hit any area that you removed the bubble algae from with peroxide.  That should help stop it from returning.  Try not to pop the bubbles.  I know that it has been speculated that this will release algae spores into to water, which could end up spending the problem.

 

[seabass]

The green film on the rocks was healthy, and a very good sign after dinos.  Having what you might consider pristine rocks, kind of equates with trying to prevent it from maturing.  You probably only really had to deal with the Valonia (bubble algae), which can be an invasive pest.

 

Can you share a pic of it with us?

[Toomanymatts]

47 minutes ago, seabass said:

The green film on the rocks was healthy, and a very good sign after dinos.  Having what you might consider pristine rocks, kind of equates with trying to prevent it from maturing.  You probably only really had to deal with the Valonia (bubble algae), which can be an invasive pest.

 

Can you share a pic of it with us?

I never took a pic, but it does look very similar to Valonia as I look it up.   If that hard to remove green is safe, I'll put the rocks back in tomorrow...

[Toomanymatts]

That flat rock had the same green alage on it as the others that I pulled due to bubble alage.  No bubble alage on that piece. That is the only dry rock I added.  Rest were live from LFS.  

[seabass]

Oh awesome, you got some good coralline algae on your rock!  But I can't say for sure from the pic what you have going on there, as the green algae isn't exactly like what I was expecting.  However, it doesn't look very menacing either.

[Toomanymatts]

22 minutes ago, seabass said:

Oh awesome, you got some good coralline algae on your rock!  But I can't say for sure from the pic what you have going on there, as the green algae isn't exactly like what I was expecting.  However, it doesn't look very menacing either.

It's weird. You can see where the lower rock lost some coraline and the green stuff appears in it's place.  I don't get it.  But the tank is fairly new. Started in Feb.