Help!!

[tomw]

Hi,

I live in Buckley, WA. and haven't been able to find anyone else in this hobby whom might live somewhat close to me! I have been trying this hobby for 3 years now, and I feel about ready to give up. I am trying so hard to make it work, and need someone whom has some experience maybe to come by, and provide me some advise! I have a 75 gallon reef, with metal halide ect.

I hope someone out there can possibly help me.

Look forward to hearing from someone.

Best Regards,

TomW

 

[ChadJ]

Tom, while I am not close to you I have a similar situation in that there are very few reefers close to me. I have had great success though by posting my problems in sites such as these and I have found that people are more than willing to help come up with solutions that have saved me on many occasions.

What kind of problems are you having?

 

[tomw]

I have having a bubble algae issue, that is just going crazy! Taking over my tank. I don't know what to do. I have been told to take my rock out, but I have quite a bit of coral that is attached to the rocks!

 

[Montanarocknreefer]

I hear emerald crabs are great for bubble algae.

 

[tomw]

Johnny--Thanks for the reply! I have 3 in my tank currently, and they aren't even putting a dent into my problem. I must of popped some of them, and now they are just taking over my tank! Maybe I should post a picture, so poeple can see how bad it is? That's why i was hoping I could meet someone local to me.

Thanks!

 

[cookiemn]

tomw,
same thing happened to me a few years ago. I had emarld crabs and they did nothing. What I ended up doing is that when I had to do a water change, I started the suction in a hose to a bucket and pointed the business end of the hose right on top of the bubble algae. It took a few water changes, but I got rid of most of the bubble algae. The frequent water changes also stopped the spread of the algae. Best of all, using the suction method you have very little chance of burtsing them. If you do, the spoers are sucked up quickly.

 

[Alice]

What kind of corals are on the rocks? Most corals you can have out of the water for at least 5-10 minutes, most actually longer if you spritz them with SW. Getting rid of bubble algae is an absolute pain. Taking the rocks out, picking the algae off with forceps or tweezers, scrubbing, flushing...blech. You may be facing it though. Once that is done, you'll need to ramp up export and ramp down import of nutrients to keep them from gaining a foothold again.

You might want to think about a refugium with macro to outcompete the Valonia for nutrients.

Good luck!

 

[Crows Ridge]

Tom, I live about 5 miles from you. I'll give you a call.


Thanks, Chris

 

[NaH2O]

Hey tomw and ChadJ - Welcome to RF!!

Tom - I'm sorry you have been frustrated! Hang in there, and we'll get you on the right track. Why don't you start off by telling us about your system. What size tank do you have, how many pounds of live rock, type of substrate, how many and what type of inhabitants you have in there....as much about your set-up as you can - also include your equipment, water source, and any water parameters/tests you have taken. Hopefully, with a little more information we can help figure out the cause of the nusaince algae.

 

[Gina]

We also had that problem once and tried Emerald Crabs. They did nothing to help out with the problem. We siphoned off quit a few of them during water changes but, removed them all when we reaquascaped and took the rock out. Looks like you have someone who lives close to you and may be able to give you a hand. Good luck! You'll get it!

 

[Crows Ridge]

How about a group analysis?

Tom has a nice setup. An LFS sold him the full blown package. Lets see if I can remember all of the facts. Sorry Tom, correct me if I get anything wrong.

There are several hundred bubble algae that I can see. Its not just a pick or syphon tactic here.

75g acrylic
Stand and canopy
Chiller
Sump w/bio balls and filter pad
External pumps
Calcium reactor
1 250watt mh
4 vho actinic

Yellow tang
2 percs
sixline
gobie ?
Psuedo
various crabs and snails
coral banded shrimp
several cool clams
"'nice" rose
3 sps and the rest are LPS and a "big" leather.



I would think the first thing to do is bail out of the pad and bio balls.

Anyone heard of bioballs in the skimmer? It came that way.....

My first thought was to take all the LR out and clean it. BUT, then I saw the sump. If he takes the pad and bio balls out, I think that it may stop feeding the algae. There are traces of the hair algae remaining too. Anyone think it would starve? Im trying to keep him from having to tear the tank down again if possible.

I had problems with my calcium reactor causing problems and sold it. Tom is having the same troubles. Does he really need it on that light of a bio load for calcium?

Feeding. He feeds 1ea. 1/2" square frozen mix a day. Does not seem too much.

He has ro water that tests 0

I think he needs a second mh on a 4' tank. With the clams and judging from a sps he has. Its a nice blue where its closest to the light and brown everywhere else.

Well, thats enough to get started.

Thanks, Chris

 

[acropora]

I agree with Alice above. There is no easy way out, when you have a large amount of Valonia. Emerald Crabs or a Sailfin Tang will not be adequate. You will have to physically remove each bubble with tweezers. It will be a tedious task, but it will work. Start from one side of your tank and remove one piece of L.R. and use the tweezers to remove each bubble. Keep a bucket of existing tank water nearby ,and before you return the L.R. to your tank, place the rock in it and shake off accumulated detrtitus.You will from time to time find some that you have missed, but the occasional one or two can be removed with your tweezers, in the tank.

 

[fishermann]

i agree to get rid of the bio balls and you can use the pad but you need to rinse it out everyother day or so, it well catch detritus but you don't want it breaking down any further, so rinse it frequently. my thoughts are to siphon out what you can and take out the rock that is easy to do. The others are right that it ain't going away on its own. most everyone has a small amount so if you can siphon some,and pick some out you might be able to get it down to an acceptable level. Good luck

 

[mojoreef]

yea I got to go with acropora. sounds like he needs to do a big clean and then some general system design changes. Do a very slow bioball removal, this will allow for notrifing bacteria to repopulate elsewhere. On the bioballs in the skimmer , thats fine and they are built that way, mine is the same.
As per the big clean, go with what arco says and remove one rock or a few at a time and clean them outside of the tank, so when they break they dont spore out in your system. when the algae gets that thick it creates its own little detritus collecting enviroment.
We should get a look at some parameters and so on to so post them up if you can. also any substraight in thier??

mike

 

[Crows Ridge]

Mike, I told Tom you would ask that He has barely enough to cover the bottom!

Chris

 

[mojoreef]

Yeah Chris it makes a difference. Does he clean it out on a regular basis?

Mike

 

[Chimera]

I would ditch all bioballs anywhere.

Is it possible that the media in the calcium reactor is releasing phosphates?

Harvesting the Valonia is key to solving the problem. Keep pulling it out, and eventually it will crash.

 

[CarlS]

If picking the valonia off with tweasers is too hard you can buy a stainless steel wire brush found in the paint section at your local Home Depot or a BBQ grill brush and scrub the valonia off the rock.

Also can't you replace the bioballs in the skimmer with live rock rubble? I think people do that with bak pak 2's but I'm not too sure.

Good luck.

 

[tomw]

Hi to all
Thanks to all of you for the assistance! Obviously it appears from most of you that I need to remove my rock again! --uugh! I just did that 7 months ago, when I removed all of my sand that became like cement on the bottom of my tank. It did solve my hair algae issue though, but it was a real pain! I have removed all of the bio balls, and already the coral look much happier. I will leave the calcium reactor in my setup, but watch the bubble count very closely for sure.
One more question for one of you. My regulator on my calcuim reactor is very hard to fine tune. Any recommendations on a really good regulator to buy? It takes my 3 days sometimes to fine tune it when I hjave to change my CO2 canister.
Thanks!

 

[NaH2O]

Maybe this thread will help, Tom. Let us know how the Bubble Algae removal goes!

Looking for CO2 Regulator??