greystreet41
In Memoriam
I'm having quite the bubble bloom in the fairly new hex. I know some of you have done well with emeralds, but is it hit or miss?
are emerald crabs hit or miss with bubble algae?
- Thread starter greystreet41
- Start date
Angela Short
New member
I don't know if I always had bubble alage and my emeralds just kept it munched down or I recently aquired it swapping corals. I haven't seen any of my 4 emeralds in a long,long time and I suddenly have bubble alage appearing. They may have mysteriously died? So I don't know if its a coincedence or not. I plan on adding some more crabs soon to see if they eat it for me though.
danieljames
New member
Never had one that ate it. It's never bothered me though. I like the way it looks.
Stinky2426
New member
I really missed, I got 4 emerald crabs 5 weeks ago and that stuff is still there, what the heck, you probably know this already Grey, but if you remove the bubble manually and it burst, you will get 10 more growing elsewhere
XeniaMania
Active member
I don't know if they really eat it, or just the fact when they're scraping the rocks, they incidentally scrape and pop the bubble algae as well. I see the 2 that I have all the time and the only algae I see them eating are my coralline..grrrr
I have had good luck with emeralds but they are hit and miss and some will do a better job than others IMO. Also the occasional one will pick at corals and I usually remove those(they seem to be fond of Pocilliporas for some reason). FWIW they graze in large beds of bubble algae in Florida so they definately eat it. I have seen them eating it many, many times in my tanks.
They are not a magical cure and it will take some time and patience to get it to die down. Also not feeding enough so they can get much is a must. If they can eat fish food they much prefer that over Valonia and will not be of much help.
Manual removal to help them is a good idea. I don't worry about busting a few bubbles but I try not to bust too many. I setup a siphon with a butter knife electric taped to the end and took out as much as I could with a few gallons of water every couple of week or so for a couple of months and that seemed to work pretty good last time I had an outbreak......along with adding ~ 8 crabs. The water changes also probably had something to do with it.
Bubble algae still grows fairly well in low nutrient conditions but will really take off if you have higher nutrients. If you have a big jump in the population there is likely a nutrient spike of some sort going on. My last outbreak was when I took my sandbed out.
hth, Chris
They are not a magical cure and it will take some time and patience to get it to die down. Also not feeding enough so they can get much is a must. If they can eat fish food they much prefer that over Valonia and will not be of much help.
Manual removal to help them is a good idea. I don't worry about busting a few bubbles but I try not to bust too many. I setup a siphon with a butter knife electric taped to the end and took out as much as I could with a few gallons of water every couple of week or so for a couple of months and that seemed to work pretty good last time I had an outbreak......along with adding ~ 8 crabs. The water changes also probably had something to do with it.
Bubble algae still grows fairly well in low nutrient conditions but will really take off if you have higher nutrients. If you have a big jump in the population there is likely a nutrient spike of some sort going on. My last outbreak was when I took my sandbed out.
hth, Chris
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