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Parker
02-17-2007, 08:19 PM
I finally decided I have lost my battle with bubble algae. Today I boiled 85% of my live rock.. I hope this works.. last thing I want to do is buy more..

I do have one question though, I have a 3 headed Candy Cane frag that is covered in red bubble algae, how do I rid it of algae without harming the coral, or is this possible?

Chaloupa
02-17-2007, 08:29 PM
you "boiled" as in with hot water?

Parker
02-17-2007, 08:32 PM
Yep, as a last ditch effort. I now have 85% base rock and 15% live. I should have tanken pictures of how bad it got. You couldn't see some of the rock at all for the algae. The next step was to cook it for months or boil it or buy completly new rock.

Chaloupa
02-17-2007, 08:34 PM
WOW you must have been desperate! Oh well, at least you have a fresh start and with the live rock hopefully it won't take long to seed the base!

DanG
02-17-2007, 08:51 PM
Many people have success with emerald crabs eating bubble algae. When I had one, he made quick work of all the bubbles in the tank and never touched anything else.

Chad
02-17-2007, 08:54 PM
Too bad about boiling it, "cooking" it in the dark for a couple of months would have done the trick, but thats only good if you have the patience to wait it out. Boiling the rock, your tank is going to cycle for sure with all the now dead organisms in that rock.

Quagmire
02-17-2007, 10:10 PM
So now I have a question.Why would cooking rock,as in putting it in the dark for a couple maybe 3 months be better than dropping 85% of the rock in boiling water,then letting the other 15% reseed the boiled rock.Granted boiled rock will be completely stripped of life.But in the time it takes to "cook" rock the boiled rock will be reseeded.To me they seem about the same provided the 15% isn't full of the nasty stuff you were trying to get rid of.I know some will say that "cooking " will save some of the good critters that are in the rock,that we never see,but I wonder if the rock is so far gone that it needs cooking.who's to say there is anything left alive larger than bacteria?

Beverly
02-18-2007, 02:03 AM
I've pondered the question of "cooking" the rock as opposed to boiling the stuff on the stove to get rid of bubble algae. Here's my reasoning for boiling it instead of "cooking" it...

"Cooking" the rock kills the algae, but in the case of bubble algae, once the bubbles have been killed due to lack of light, there is every expectation that many, if not most, of the bubbles will have released spores into the "cooking" water. Of course, when you "cook" rock, you also do water changes, rock swishing, some scrubbing, and siphoning out all crud on a regular basis. However, no matter what you do during the "cooking" phase (that will last for months), you will never remove all the spores released by the dead bubble algae. Once the dormant bubble algae spores are again introduced to light, they will grow.

Boiled bubble algae will also release spores, but during the boiling process in untreated tapwater containing, in our case, chloramine, the spores will all be killed.

I don't know how sound this reasoning is. If you can find holes in it anywhere, please let me know.

On the other hand, we have been removing rock from our tank on a (too) regular basis to remove bubble algae. Our removal method is to chip away a bit of rock surrounding the bubble algae so that it does not break, thereby not releasing any spores. It's working okay, except I think often when we introduce a new frag or snails or something from a tank that has bubble algae in it, we get a fresh batch all over again. Very frustrating :twised:

Dave C
02-18-2007, 01:07 PM
If/when an emerald crab eats bubble algae, are the spores released? If so then is this a good method for getting rid of it?

Beverly
02-18-2007, 01:51 PM
Dave,

My educated guess is that spores would be released when bubble algae is eaten by an emerald crab. However, I have not had an emerald crab that actually ate bubble algae, so I can offer no real experience in this matter.

Ruth
02-18-2007, 02:34 PM
You have to be pretty lucky (or unlucky as the case may be) to have the released spores from a popped bubble algea be at the exact right stage "ripeness" to actually be viable to reproduce. It is not as if as a popped bubble will usually contain mature spores that are capable of reproduction. There have been numerous articles written on this (I didn't check but there are probably a few references in our reference library). I have picked bubble algea off my rocks - usually right in the aquarium - some popped and some didn't but irregardless I did not have an explosion of bubble algea in my tank. From time to time one or 2 appear and I pick it off.
IMO actually boiling the rock is extreme and you have basically turned your live rock into dead rock that is virtually worthless until it hopefully reseeds with beneficial bacteria etc. I would just be tempted to buy new live rock but would have first tried to remove all bubbles outside of the tank or tried a few emerald crabs. JMO

Parker
02-18-2007, 03:53 PM
Here is a picture of one of the better rocks I had in the system. This is the reason I boiled, there was just too much to try and clean off. It covered just about every rock I had, except few burried at the bottom.

http://www.thedropfactory.com/pictures/IMG_1518%20(Small).JPG

marie
02-18-2007, 04:01 PM
My foxface would of thought he had died and gone to heaven if I had given him that rock :lol: . One mans weeds are another mans/womens fish food :razz:

Chaloupa
02-18-2007, 04:32 PM
WOW~ yah, my rabbitfish would have been pretty happy too!