Bubble algae in bio cube

[nathan1986]

Tank is 1 year old and about 3 months ago i noticed a bubble here and there. Was no biggie cause i just took care of it during weekly water changes. Reciently ive been extra busy at work and the corals are very hard to work around without sucking euphyllia tips into my syphon tube. Needless to say the bubble algae is everwhere now! Tank is fully stocked with lps corals and rock is fixed together. My only thought is doing a water change at night when all the corals are retracted and going to town on the bubble algae. Sucks the tank is too small (biocube 29) to put one of the known bubble algae eating fish in the tank. In your opinion would manual removal (without really worrying about popping them and releasing spores) adding 2 emrald crabs (hit and miss if they will eat it) and possibly adding a uv steralizer to kill the spores in the water, do the trick? the fiji rock in the tank has a ton of cracks/crevices that the bubble algae is growing in so alot will have to be popped to remove. Any insight on another idea would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, nathan

[saf1]

Manual removal. I also had great success with emerald crabs.

[dymaxiun]

Do a water change before lights on to avoid disturbing anything, or at night as you said. Manual removal with siphon will be best bet... As you remove them, have siphon hose right next to the area. Also, adding two crabs may not be a bad idea as well. I assume you have no other algae problems - right?

[nathan1986]

Yes no other algae in the tank at all. Just this annoying bubble algae lol

[Snook65]

I added an emerald crab about four-five months ago to see if it could help with my bubble algae problem and it ended up living in my Montipora digital and nibbling away at it. I had to get rid of the crab and slowing my coral is coming back.

[nathan1986]

Ya pretty much every natural solution to our tank problems is a 50/50 that itll work. I just picked up to emeralds from a local store that has reviews of their emeralds being bubble algae eating monsters. So hopefully i got some good ones. But evrrything is a hit and miss. I used pepermint shrimp on one of my old tanks in the past for aptasia and worked wonderfully. Added one to my biocube a week ago and within seconds he was eating my hammer coral. He turned into eel food after i caught him. Fingers crossed these emeralds work tho