****fish that eats valonia bubble algae - move to discussion forum?

[Delphinus]

Ha! For $150 I'll eat valonia too. Well, Ok maybe not.

FWIW, I have two fish who seem to do a bang-up job at it, Siganus virgatus rabbitfish in one tank, and Zebrasoma desjardini Red Sea Sailfin tang in another and they go to town on the stuff.

I never had any luck with emerald crabs, I went through a dozen of them and they never did a thing to valonia. Apparently you have to keep getting more of them until you find one that will and then you're set, but finding the few that will help is a bit annoying. I actually took a tank down because the valonia was so bad, this was before I discovered my sailfin devoured the stuff. When I took that tank down, I moved all my snails (which had become 2" roving colonies of valonia) into the tank with the tang, and within hours they were clean snails once more.

Good luck with the search! Having a bad case of valonia can get to you (heck like I said I gave up on a tank because of it .. this was before I had the rabbit).

[Nate]

Make sure to get the biggest red sea sailfin you can, as in my experiences with alonia it makes the real difference.

Nate

[Chin_Lee]

thanks guys for your advice.
When I switched tanks, I didn't use any of my old rocks and the coral pieces i scrubbed and scrubbed for days.... i have bubble algae again.
I've bought 10 emeralds put three in my 165 and 7 in the 300 still got the bubble aglae problem.
I got phosban running 24/7 changed every 3 months, still got the problem.

So Marc, I'll take you up on the offer to eat the bubble algae from my tanks..... i might even throw in a $20 tip if you don't use your hands

So there are recommendations for Naso, rabbit fish, and red sea sailfin which I will look into if nobody takes my offer which still stands for anybody with one of these fish i'll buy it for $150. Tony i'll even pay for shipping if you are willing to part with your bubble algae eating fishes.

[findingnemo1]

My naso eats it but that is a long way to ship him

[Chowder]

I have a fish that will eat Bubble Algae....... I just have to go and pick it up from the LFS. What would u prefer ......Ha Ha

[tang daddy]

Chin, I had all type of algae growing on my rock not too sure what the names ar but one was red bubble type that anchored itself to lr good you couldn't get it off with a knife even so I took my sea urchin out of the reef and put it in within a week all the algae was gone so save your 150 spend 14 on an urchin and when you're done sell it. they're awesome at keeping the tank clean eat every agae I had only problem is when they get big it's a pain after I got pricked I sold it but am planning on getting a small one in a month or so cause the algae is slowly growing back!

[Chowder]

Emarld crabs worked for me on my small breakout . I have heard that long spin urchins work as well.

[adidas]

my rabbit and sailfin eats it but i love my guys too much to sell.

[ClubReef]

I had a bad case of Valonia outbreak 6 months ago. I bought a couple of emerald crabs and they really attacked the small and medium sized bubbles..they don't really touch the larger ones. I cleaned up the larger ones by popping them with a bbq skewer, pretty much eliminated all of them. People say that popping them will only spread and propogate the algae..but in my experience this was not the case. My bubbles have been controlled and I won't hesitate to pop any larger ones in the future. This is my first hand experience.

[Psyire]

I have a 6" magnificent foxface that loves the stuff. However it would take far more than $150 to get me to part with him.