jimoige

hi, I have quite a few of these growing on my live rock. They're orange with bright orange spots. Generally they have one big bubble like (although not quire round) growth with smaller ones surrounding it.

Any ideas?

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harpua2002

Looks like bubble algae to me. I've had that kind and I've had the green kind as well. It's really difficult to get rid of... take care not to pop the bubbles if you're trying to remove it. It'll spread like crazy if you do... trust me, LOL.

lew2000

I would agree. It is botryocladia skottsbergii (red valonia). I usually just removed whenever i saw it. Usually an indication of possibly to much phosphates or nitrates.

au01st

Actually, popping the bubbles will not cause the algae to spread. Just yank it out.

If you want the natural method, get an emerald crab and it should eat the bubble algae.

harpua2002

Interesting. I've always been told differently. I guess you learn something new every day.

cerianthus

i would not pop them in the tank. Try avoiding such. With all emerald Crabs kept, never were impressed with their performances as far as eradication of Valonia.. It seemed to me that they will cut/chop them off the rock but not truly consume/eat, IMO. Not saying it will or would not but from my 20 yrs of experiences in reefing, simply was not impressed.
When eradicated manually by removing them out of the tank and scrub/rinse several times or by sucking out its contents using hypodermic needle, I achieve better control of such nuisance algae provided that this is bubble algae to begin with. Cant say for sure unless more pics from different angles.

dixiegirl916

We get green ones in our tank from time to time. we just carefully pull it off our rock and take it out of the tank. if it pops it spreads. that is what my experiance with them are. but it looks like red bubble algae