Bubble Algae Help

[brewercm]

I have a really bad outbreak of bubble algae. Not very large just tons of the little ones.

Does anyone know of anything other than emeral crabs that might eat them. I have one right now and want to get at least a couple more when the LFS get them in. I haven't heard of anything else that would eat them so if you know of anything let me know.

[justahobby]

The Desjardini Sailfin Tang is known to eat it. I want to say BigBird got one a while back to battle bubble algae. I never heard the results.

[brewercm]

HEY STEVE!!!!!!!!

Have you tried this :wink_smile:

[JTrott]

Desjardini Sailfins will eat them, but if given other options, they will look over them, from my experience anyway. Emeralds are the best to get it gone. We normally have them in stock.

Jason

[SaltyJim]

I tried the emerald route. I finally just yanked a lot of the loose, smaller rocks and scrubbed. But I gave up on that too, the rocks were just coated. I ended up just using a turkey baster to nudge the clusters of bubbles off their hold, then suck them in. I know I broke a few, but I managed to remove most of the masses. While I was never able to rid myself of the bubble algae, it was mostly gone. Since then, I have added a sailfin (not for the reason of bubble algae), and I realized this past weekend that every old bubble had been removed from the rocks. Could have been the tang, an emerald that survived (haven't seen one in many, many, many months), or a cleanup in parameters along with the manual removal.

That being said, I had always heard that it was Fox Faces that ate the bubble algae.

[kkiel02]

And emeralds are alot cheaper.

[mabel_photo6]

I agree with Emerald Crabs.
I had a little batch of bubble algae and quickly moved on it before it got worse.
They got rid of it over night! :)
Just get a few more to help with the overload... other than that, I know Tangs like them too.
My baby Yellow Tang actually eats them too.

[devonian]

yup, emeralds and red sea sailfins for sure

[ACE]

That being said, I had always heard that it was Fox Faces that ate the bubble algae.

I had some bubble algae begin to set in. I have a Magnificent Foxface and Yellow Tang and neither touched it. I threw a couple of Emeralds in my 125 and they had it gone after two nights

[JimD]

Ive had good results with the Foxface, its hit or miss with anything, you just have to cross your fingers...

[NateDogg]

So.. I am assuming that the bubble algae that everyone is battling is green? I have red bubble algae. It is round and very similar to the green. There are three differences, it is smaller, it is red, and it is much more agressive. My emeralds (two in a 29g) don't touch them. I can't even suck them off with a turkey baster. I sharpened a flat head screw driver and scraped them off. I know it is extreme, but so is the algae.

[Ping]

I fought Velonia a couple of years ago. Crabs only scrape the rocks and occasionally eat one.
Purchased a Foxface and now I only find a bubble under a rock or in a nook the fish cant get to.

[NateDogg]

I have heard from several people that the Foxface and Yellow Tang are great fish to combat this. Unfortunately, I have a 29g biocube and the inn is full. I have started scraping the bubbles with my screwdriver and doing a water change immediately after. It is starting to become manageable.

[CoryDude]

NateDogg, good luck with the red bubble algea. I'm battling it also. I've had some luck with scrubbing the rocks in a separate bucket and rinsing them off before putting back into the tank. That and low nutrients have kept them managable for me.

[Europhyllia]

In Julian Sprung's Algae book it says that in addition to the ones already mentioned the Diadema (long spined) urchin would also eat the bubble algae.

[Aquarium masters]

Take a piece of rigid airline tubing and cut one end at an angle so that it is pointed, connect a few feet of airline hose to the other end and start a siphon into a bucket. Poke the bubble and siphon out the spores inside with the tubing. The parent bubble should die and the babies are in the bucket then just pour and flush... And your doing a water change at the same time.
Cheapest method I have found.

[FossilReef]

For those of you that frequent Port A & Corpus...I have another solution. Striped Shore Crabs. They'll eat literally any algae, and I've had no coral-related problems whatsoever.