bubble algae

[joeycadre]

besides picking it off (it's on rocks that are covered with coral and at the bottom of the tank) and emerald crabs (i have 2 in the tank and they ignore the stuff) what can i do?

phosphates are .25-.1 salifert
nitrates 0
cal 420
alk 9.3

sg 1.026

temp 80-81

i don't know what to do, but it' starting to be a problem.

 

[Mappelbaum37]

-increase clean up crew.
- leave lights off either 1 or 2 days before water change, then scrub the bubble algae off. (tooth brush comes in handy.)

I have green hair algae, starting to die off, but still here. Tooth brush is quite effective in my situation.

As far as the phosphates, are you running a phosban reactor?

 

[joeycadre]

yup. i have magna vore in a phosban reactor. all of my hair algae has gone, but these damn little bubbles are making me mad.

i also started prodibio about a month ago so maybe that will help. it has cleared up the tank a ton since i started with the biotim and bio digest.

 

[Chef Reef]

YOUR DOOMED!...

hehe

emerald crabs cleaned mine up, had to get a few of them though becuase not all will eat it.

 

[Reef-LeGeNd]

check your source water. It probably is horrible.

 

[pledosophy]

I had a pretty bad outbreak in my 65g system. I started using a smaller gauge hose (1/2") during water changes and would dislodge them with the end of the hose and then suck them out. I did around 20g's a week for 6 weeks or so. In the second week I added 12 emeralds. 5th week I added a protein skimmer. I'm at around week 10 or so and no algaes.

If your going to do the no light thing, I would scrape the rocks, then turn out the lights, then do the water change. More effective.

HTH

 

[joeycadre]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12438315#post12438315 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Reef-LeGeNd
check your source water. It probably is horrible.

i use ro/di that has 0tds, 1 tds at the most.

i don't think that's the problem.

 

[joeycadre]

hmmmmm. maybe more crabs and less light.

how real is the idea that breaking the bubbles just spreads them?

 

[reptilemanmark]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12438055#post12438055 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Chef Reef
YOUR DOOMED!...

hehe

emerald crabs cleaned mine up, had to get a few of them though becuase not all will eat it.

This is definitly TRUE! The first 3 I had did not seem to touch it. The last 3 I bought went to town on the stuff. If there is other stuff in the tank for them to eat they wont eat the bubble algae.
I also bought a UV light that seem to cut down on the spread of the stuff.

 

[RevHtree]

If you watch an emerald crab eat them you will see that they clearly burst the bubble's as they eat them.