Yup, I find the hot water trick works for any algae. For bubble algae I put a short piece of 1/2" tubing over the end of my baster and put the tube right against the rock with a bubble or 2 inside, then slowly baste. Bubble algae takes about a week to disintegrate after that.

my regal eats it...

my sailfin won't touch it, when it came time to reduce the patch on one of my rocks, i just plucked most of it manually, got a phosphate sponge, water changes and ....tried not to pop it when plucking!

So its sounding like emerald crabs are more of crapshoot than they are advertised to be. Has anyone had success using emeralds? By the sounds of it, most people had to resort to manual removal to get rid of this algae.

<<How to get rid of Valonea algae? >>

You don't...it slowly gets rid of you<g>

I have the same problem and bought 4 emerald crabs but they seem to eat all the other easily acessible algae first.

Yeah, that's what I have been noticing with my emeralds too, that they go after any algae (or coral polyps....) without touching the valonea.

A related question: How do you be rid of it when it is right on your coral? I have a small bubble that always comes back on my hammerspawn and am scared to try harsher methods due to it being so close to the head/polyps.

Is it far enough away to shield the polyps with a oyster shell, or even cut a piece of plastic as a shield.