Hey Bob (or anyone) what is this?
 

Bob, those zoo's I got from you are doing great! Just wondering what these bubbles are towards the back of them? I think these is 4-5 of them. New zoo's forming?

http://aquahome.no-ip.com/zooquestion.jpg

Walter

I am afraid not Walter. That is the infamous Bubble algae, or Valonia. I would lift the frag out of the water, and carefully so as not to break the bubbles remove them. Maybe use a knife point. :sad:

I got about 1/2 off without breaking them :confused: I rinsed it with some salt water after I was done and put it back in the tank. You might want to check your tank Bob! Those bubbles were on there when I got it from you... :razz:

Walter

I have them too. They are hard to erase. I have had some luck manually removing them :rolleyes:

Tweezers...

I was reading some old posts about it. Teevee was just poping them. Anyone know how that worked out?

http://www.canreef.com/phpBB2/viewto...hlight=valonia

Walter

My tangs eat them, but I think that's rare.

My yellow Tang likes them as well

Whaase I've only popped about five total and they weren't too big, but I haven't had any problems with them since. The bit of research I did indicated that whether or not they contain spores depends on their developmental stage... I would probably try to remove them without breaking them, regardless.

I generally try not to pop them on removal. Sometimes they just pop though by the time you get them off the rock. Whether they release spores or not just means you'll have to tweeze out some more down the road. But you didn't really want to have nothing to do though, right? Otherwise you might get bored. :wink:

My tangs don't touch them. Emerald crabs are reputed to munch on them, but I suspect they won't go for the real big ones.

I've tried emerald crabs a few times and unfortunately in my experience they just disappeared into the rockwork never to be seen again.