Carolina Fish Talk Forums banner
1 - 9 of 9 Posts

· Registered
Joined
·
561 Posts
Discussion Starter · #1 ·
OK I got a question. Since I have got into corals I'm now starting to see some bubble algae in tank. What are some preventive measures you can do to avoid getting stuff like this in your tank. I've heard some people say they dip their corals but dip it in what?
 

· Registered
Joined
·
151 Posts
There are a few different manufacturers for dip but you can just google coral dip. Coral RX is one that is popular and you just mix it into some tank water in a separate container and follow the instructions but dipping corals is not for algae issues but rather for parasites and other things that can hitchhike or infest corals from one tank to another.

The bubble algae more or less is probably from the water quality or an abundance of nutrients.
 

· Registered
Joined
·
3,761 Posts
The best solution is prevention. Irie is correct there are several different products on the market that can be used as dips, which one you use will vary depending on what you are trying to eradicate.

I personally like Revive for my day to day dipping. But even it will not kill most eggs (AEFW comes to mind) But it does a pretty good job knocking various pests out and making it easy to get them off the coral.

The only real way to prevent any type of infestation is to set up a quarantine tank and after dipping all new additions moving them to the QT for observation, and further dips if needed.

Most of what I have talked about is in reference to pests, not nuisance algae, depending on the algae there are several different biological ways to keep them at bay, for instance emerals crabs eat bubble algae, various fish nip at hairalgae, but if the problem is present there is a reason. It could be due to overfeeding, old bulbs, high phosphates ect.... more often than not, high phosphates is the culperate, and while most tests will read 0 phosphates they are almost always wrong unless you are using a low range po4 kit which can detect even a low amount of phos, because it dosent take much to start a problem. If I were you I would start by testing all water params and making sure everything is where it is supposed to be.


Oh and DONT break the bubbles in your tank, it will just cause it to spread more rapidly

It can be a pain to properly keep things out of your tank but it is nowhere near as painful as having to tear your tank apart to fix a problem that could have been prevented by better practices.
 

· Registered
Joined
·
1,084 Posts
one thing that can help is dipping the frag in a gallon of sat water treated with 3-10mls of h202 (hydrogen peroxide) just the dollar store type at .03% for anywhere from 5-30 minutes. This wont rid you of everything, but it will get rid of a lot; however, you will have to play with the ratio to realize the maximum molarity you can use with a given coral species.
 

· Registered
Joined
·
258 Posts
there is no dip for bubble algae. All you can do for that is keep your phosphates rock bottom low and it will die off. Remove it manually when you can.
Agreed. There's no dip that will get everything. They'll help, but I don't know of any dip strong enough to catch every pest that wouldn't be similarly hard on your frag. (And I say this as a person battling an aiptasia problem I got from an auction frag that I dipped!) Unless you're quarantining every frag, it's buyer beware.
 
1 - 9 of 9 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top