Bubble algae : crisis

[perikaruppan]

Dear friends
I have been havin this 400 gallon sps reef with frags and the system is been performing alright for some time.

I had a buble in one of the frags and I busted it while removing it and from there on a few went on to hundreds and now to millions.

Lighting is mix of 400w 20k radium (2 nos) and DIY led panels.
Skimmer is SRO SSS 5000
DIY chiller for cooling
And all parameters are normal
Alk - 7.8
Ca - 450
Mg - 1475
Phosphates - 0.01
Nitrates - 0
Phos and nitrates will show zero as the buble is consuming it big time.

I feed two frozen cubes of hikari mysis per day along with a small quantum of nls pellets.

Fish load is low for my tank with
three yellow tangs
Two regal tangs
Couple of wrasses
Four chromis
One fox face for bubble removal.

I think te fox went bizzerk on the bubble on the glasses and cleaned up my entire back glass which had a carpet of bubbles. And now I have them on the rocks every where. But the fox is not eating the ones on the rocks.



Luckily I have the scaping done in such a way I remove the rocks and remove the bubbles. But I have so much bubbles per rock that I Donna how to remove them all and it might take ages. Some of the rocks that I removed from system to remove bubbles.
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/03/3egaqyme.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/03/3ubagyty.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/03/ugamehuh.jpg

I have been running phosban and now going to kick start my ATS with red LEDs. But before that I thought of removing as much bubble as possible.

In some of the rocks I have frags that I can remove, then remove the rocks and scrape the rocks off bubble.

Some of my tank shots. And bubble growing with some frags :)
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/03/udyjamys.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/03/perusyre.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/03/4u8yqujy.jpg

Kindly lemme know what can be done
Can I pour peroxide on removed rocked to kill the bubble or do I need to manually remove them and then add peroxide?

[mayjong]

wow
more rabbitfish and lots of emerald crabs might work.

[mayjong]

lots. like 40-50...

[fishgate]

Not sure if this is effective for bubble algae, but I used it in my tank and it got rid of all the algae I had including bryopsis.

http://www.amazon.com/API-387D-Algaefix-Marine-16-Ounce/dp/B0017JHBGY/ref=sr_1_21?ie=UTF8&qid=1396538032&sr=8-21&keywords=algae+remover

[perikaruppan]

Too many fox faces might be a problem right ?
Will algae fix work? Being a 400 gallon I might need quite a few to doze.
What was the dosing regime and does it affect corals?

[crvz]

I would not dose chemicals to address this issue, on the contrary, I'd be looking at doing more water changes and making certain your water chemistry is as clean as possible. I have had good success with both fox face and naso tangs for bubble algae control. I know that you're showing test results without high levels of nitrate or phosphate, but algae growth like that indicates that nutrient load is an issue regardless of your testing.

[Bernie21]

I've had bad out breaks of bubble algae several times. A couple things that work, when I did water changes I would scape the rocks as I was suctioning them so all that gunk was removed simultaneously. Secondly and perhaps more importantly, Get a couple of FOXFACES... I had one and it removed everything!!! I also had some emerald crabs that Ive heard eat bubble algae, but for sure the foxfaces, I would see it go to town on them. Every time it would wipe them out & everything I removed the foxface for a nicer fish, the bubble algae would return, until I reintroduced a foxface. I ultimately decided on just keeping one at all times. GL

[perikaruppan]

Thanks a ton. Will buy another fox face. Should I just use a tweezers and pluck out the algae cuz I have too much as u can see in te pics. And doing it out of tank is ok, but certain rocks I need to do inside te tank.

How to remove a lot of these algae with one swipe? Use a brush?

[MondoBongo]

Thanks a ton. Will buy another fox face. Should I just use a tweezers and pluck out the algae cuz I have too much as u can see in te pics. And doing it out of tank is ok, but certain rocks I need to do inside te tank.

How to remove a lot of these algae with one swipe? Use a brush?

bubble algae is a tough customer. i've been dealing with patches on and off for a while now. thankfully not anywhere near the level of yours though.

what i have been doing is siphoning it out little by little with each water change. i have a small piece of rigid airline tubing that is attached to some regular tubing. i made several of these in various sizes depending on how big the things are i need to vacuum up.

then when i start my water change, i use the rigid tubing, or sometimes tweezers or a flat head screw driver, to coerce the bubbles from the rock. suck them right up, and toss them out with the old water.

it is a slow process, and certainly more of a marathon than a race, but if you can't remove the rocks it is a good (safe) option.

i tried injecting them hydrogen peroxide in a syringe, but was having trouble getting the needle in to them, since most were very small, and was nervous about the effects of squirting h2o2 all over my tank.

-edit-

Mr Saltwater had a good video on this, check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeqtPe3XukM

[rschroeter]

+1 MondoBongo's idea

Don't brush them - as you tap them, they break free very easily. Try to break them off, but do not puncture them as the spores inside seem to breed more when settled back to rocks. If you have rocks that are covered with nothing but BA, just remove the rock - give it a h202 bath, and clean the rock for reintroduction at a later time.

Here's what I've done to remove them. I tap them loose (so they fload into the water column, and use a net to pick them up. Just make it a marathon and be careful. If you go square-inch by square inch you will eventually get them all. Then when you're done- you'll have a few weeks where spores inevitably took to rocks, and more will come back - just continue this process until they're gone - and certainly try the rigid airline tubing/siphoning trick. Works well.

Then go into preventative mode by using GFO (phosban).

good luck - this is a battle I've had to fight, don't wish it on anyone

[saf1]

Emerald Crab have worked for me in the past. I had a pretty large outbreak in my 29 gallon bio-cube. I couldn't use the rabbit fish due to size constraints but I have used them in the past when I had a 100 gallon tank. One thing I've always noticed in the 29 gallon is that when I added 2 emeralds they tended to fight which never ended up pretty.

If that was my tank I'd just remove what you can manually without breaking/popping them. Try and work on the water parameters and add in some natural predator of that algae type such has a few emerald crabs and rabbit fish. I think between those you will see them reduce. I'd probably also try and limit some feeding while you are at it but that ties back to water quality, etc.

I still have some but nothing has bad prior.