Saltwater aquarium bubble algae is a very common problem especially for people who set up their saltwater tanks with live rock.
Below you will find a brief overview of the causes of this algae and how to reduce it in your aquarium.
What Causes Bubble Algae Like any algae bubble algae tends to thrive when there is an abundance of nutrients in the water.
Nutrients like nitrate and phosphate are the direct by products of fish waste and uneaten fish food.
With this in mind maintaining proper stocking levels in your tank and not over feeding can help reduce these nutrients.
Having adequately sized filters that are maintained properly will also go along way to helping you reduce saltwater aquarium bubble alga from your tank.
How can I Get it Out of My Saltwater Tank Removing saltwater aquarium bubble algae from your tank is very easy.
In most cases you can actually pull it off the rock work and other decorations and it should come off in large clumps.
Take great care not to rupture any of the bubbles when you are removing it because this will add more bubble algae spores into the water and cause more to grow.
Does Anything Eat It? Natural predators are a great way to control this algae growth in a saltwater aquarium and the best way to do that is to add some emerald crabs.
This is the only well know predator of this algae and while not all specimens of emerald crabs will eat it most will.
The best part is thatthese are very gentle crabs and will not attack fish or other livestock like many other crabs do and they will do a great job of slowing or stopping the return of bubble algae to your saltwater tank.