My Botryocladia (Red Valonia) Algae

thankgod4fish

thankgod4fish

Member
Well, as some of you might know, the red stuff on my LR, shown below, was IDed as Botryocladia or red valonia, which I've been made to understand is very difficult to get rid of. At this time I have no plans on adding livestock that feed on this nuisance algae. I believe a foxface will eventually outgrow a 55 and the only other thing I've read consumes it is a blue spotted puffer, which I'm not really interested in getting at this time...
All that said, I've removed the two affected pieces and placed them in a bucket with saltwater, a powerhead and an airstone for O2. I've covered the bucket, almost completely, with it's lid (not snapped on, just kinda sitting on it with a gap on one side for air exchange and room for the cords). I'm hoping to choke the algae of it's air and strip it of it's light to kill it...
I dont know if this is going to work though... seems it's a pain in the rear to grow the nice stuff (i.e. coralline) and hard as anything to get rid of the garbage.
If anyone has and advice or suggestions please fill me in
 
aarone

aarone

Active Member
if you are trying to "suffocate" the algae why do you have an airstone going into the bucket?
I would take out the power head, and airstone. Put a small heater in it.
aaron
 
thankgod4fish

thankgod4fish

Member
Oops.. failed to mention, I do have a 50w heater in it...
As for the powerhead and airstone, I'm trying to get as much O2 in there as I can. Algaes breath CO2.
 
nm reef

nm reef

Active Member
Sounds like drastic measures to remove valonia...I've never had to deal with the red type but I have battled the larger green bubbles now for well over a year. I manually remove all I can every few weeks and keep a few emeralds that like the smaller ones. My foxface will munch larger bubbles and I skim heavily to help control new growth. Over all I've managed to keep it under control and prevent it from totally taking over. But there is always some in my system to cause concern. But I don't know that I'd go to such extremes unless it was totally overrunning my reef.When I switch displays in a few months I intend to clean each piece of LR and rinse it before putting it in the new display. Hopefully during the change over I'll be able to reduce the problems with both valonia and bryopsis. :cool:
 
T

thomas712

Guest
NM I forget, did you ever try any emerald crabs for the bubble algea? I know its hit or miss on them just wondered if you ever used them.
Thomas
 
thankgod4fish

thankgod4fish

Member

Originally posted by Kipass4130
...so i sacrificed the rock... took it out.. put it in the oven and cooked the sh_t off of it (cant you tell i was angry at this algae)...
That's probably what I'll do if this doesn't work.
wish me luck
 
luptinpitman

luptinpitman

Member
So is baking all of your LR the final step to eradicate the green bubble algae?
My emeralds won't even look at the stuff. My reef is basically 40% bubble algae. What can I do?
 
j_g

j_g

Member
I had this nasty stuff all over my tank....one answer --> Maracyn ( the miracle drug) and it only takes 2 tablets. Never leave home without it!
 
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