drbenfield

What are these small green capsule-like growths coming from my live rock? Some of the hermits are eating them so I assumed they are algae. Does anyone have a clue? They are very hard.

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sgould

bubble algae. A nuisance algae that will spread all over. Some people have luck getting emerald crabs to eat them, but I'm not a big fan of emerald crabs cause after they finish the algae they move on to other things I would rather not have eaten. I've not heard of hermits eating it before, but even so I doubt they would be able to stay ahead of the algaes rate of spread. My approach is to manually remove them. Remove them by carefully scraping them from the rock. You need to get under them without popping them...popping them will cause them to spread. I usually use a smallish flathead screwdriver to do this.

BEARjuice

http://www.xtalworld.com/Aquarium/hitchfaq.htm

VALONIA AKA BUBBLE ALGAE

im quoting here." These shiny bubbles can appear green or black in your reef. Usually when you notice it, it will be a single gleaming sphere. The bad thing about valonia is that it spreads rapidly. Some people have success getting rid of them with emerald crabs. I have found that just carefully removing them with tweezers works"

cerianthus

Emerald crabs may just clip them. Personally never seen them eat. Try removing rocks from tank and pick/scrub them off then rinse thoroughly before adding back to tank. Dont pop them in the tank!