LR Growth

[andymi]

Ok I have a couple of questions.
On my live rock I have noticed some green grass like growth on my rock. This does not really look like algae as far as I can tell,
what could this be ? Caulerpa?
Also I noticed a could of almost see through green balls on the rock about the size of a pen tip. What is this? Just an air bubble or is it the start of some growth? Eggs?
--Andy

 

[fender]

Hey Andy,
The green bubble like balls are probably bubble algae. The are kinda cool looking but can get out of control and take over a tank. There were some posts a couple of months back talking about how bad it can get. An emerald crab or 2 will usually keep it in check.
The grass like stuff maybe hair algae. This also can be a pain but a clean up crew will keep it under control. If I remember right you were going to be getting one soon. Might be the perfect time.

 

[jacrmill]

fender was right on both. i got a little hair algae in my tank right now, gonna get a clean up pretty soon though. the little green bubbles are bubble algae. and i was advised to remove them. so i just pulled my rock out of the tank and plucked them suckers right off. i dont know how bad they can get, and im glad apparently. people on this board advised me to get rid of them, cause from their experience they can get really bad. you should do a search, i posted a quesiton on this not too long ago and got a lot of help. good luck.

 

[b_ball12_99]

I agree the emerald crab is your best bet for both. A word of advice, if you manually remove the bubble algea do not pop them because when you do millions of spores are release to grow and multiply in your tank.

 

[nm reef]

CAUTION....do not burst the lil green balls......full of spores and they will multiply.......best to remove the thing whole.....I've heard of people using a turkey baster......personally I had to clean up 40-50 lbs of lr that was infested with 'em..........I washed and scrubbed 'em in buckets.........hth

 

[andymi]

So is this also a sign that all conditions are right? Is there something that causes this that I might be doing incorrectly, or this just all part of it?
Just curious.
--andy

 

[b_ball12_99]

Some people will say it high phosphates and/or silicates. Ipersonally have never seen a healthy established tank without algea in it somewhere, it nature and we are try to simulate nature as best as we can.