Purple bubble alge bloom

[Funkness]

Please help bubble bubble alge has grown greatly I had to go out of town for a week had a friend watching things he called me thursday saying a bunch of purple stuff was growing I came home oh no!!!! It's almost covered a whole rock!!!!!

[+KimP]

Can you post a pic??

[Funkness]

I would but have already been working on cleaning the tank of it I have a read a uv filter should help anyone know if this is true?

[Timfish]

I've never tried a UV filter but I seriously doubt it would have any significant impact, chlorophyl is using blue and red spectrum not UV. If it's confined to one rock I would pull the rock out and if there's nothing valuable just toss it otherwise scrub it off in a bucket with some water from the tank (toss the water afterwards). I really like urchins like the royal or tuxedo for scrubbing algae off rock (research Dr. Martin Moe's studies of Diadem sp urchins role in controlling algaes on Caribean reefs for NOAA)

[Funkness]

Ok so I was reading online and a few people said tangs eat it pretty well so I got one and will see if this is true

[subsea]

I recommend Emerald Crabs. In fact, I have a large Ruby Emerald Crab in my 75G Growout Tank on my exterior back poarch.

Patrick

[Funkness]

Trying to sell it?

[mFrame]

Are they green bubbles (hard to the touch), or is this red/purple slime with bubbles in it? If the latter, then this is cyanobacteria.

[Funkness]

It's purple with bubbles no green

[mFrame]

Sounds like cyano to me. Can you easily wipe it off? I've found that a turkey baster is great for blasting it loose and then sucking it up into the baster where you can dispose of it. you can put a filter sock at the top of the tank to blast the baster into and the sock will catch it and return the water to your tank.

[+Jakedoza]

Could also try a chemclean dose... worked for me on a small bloom I had that popped up in March.. follow the directions very closely though.

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

[subsea]

Trying to sell it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valonia_ventricosa

We are too far away from each other for a small purchase such as one Emeral Crab. I merely mentioned it as a natural grazer of Valonia. I have seen different colored bubble algae and I find it attractive and different. It is not an epidemic to panic over. In fact, it is a good sign of a mature reef tank. Given an opportunity, if it were not for herbivores, most of the reefs of the world would be covered in algae.

Patrick

[Funkness]

thank you Patrick I just wondering because i make alot of trips to Austin

[subsea]

thank you Patrick I just wondering because i make alot of trips to Austin

If you came this far, it would be yours as a freebie. Patrick

[George Monnat Jr]

Does it look like this?

That's a patch in my DT now. If that's not cyano, someone please let me know

Those patches have been coming and going, but they've never been a big deal. I'm hoping to catch my mollies eating at it, but so far I haven't noticed that. I think I need to feed them and the tank less to get them hungry enough to try and eat it. I just started running a TLF 550 PhosBan reactor last night, so I'll see if that helps.