Discovered two pieces of bubble algae in my tank. What to do?

[cvcdrk]

I have been blessed with almost no algae in all the time I've had my tank. However, I moved some rocks around yesterday and discovered a fairly large piece of bubble algae on one rock. It's in a crevice. I'm sure of what it is. It's firm to the touch.
The crevice makes it difficult to get to. I can remove the entire rock if need be but it is a larger piece.
After discovering this one I searched the whole tank (what I can see) and found one other piece on a frag that has only one zoa polyp on it. This frag is mounted to a rock that is buried in the sand beneath all my other rocks. No way I'm taking this one out. This one is very small, though.

So....I have read that I can remove them out of the tank and then super glue the area after scrubbing it. I have also read that I can just super glue them to begin with to prevent the spores from breaking.

What is the best method to remove such a small outbreak and be as sure as possible (no delusion that this is over here) that I don't spread it.

 

[salt_for_brains]

Emerald crabs love the stuff. If you go the manual route DO NOT bust it in the tank.

 

[Ted]

Watch this....
4 Ways to Remove Bubble Algae From Your Reef Tank - YouTube

 

[cvcdrk]

Yeah I watched that already. He's got a full-blown outbreak and watching that...I'm just not comfortable doing that. It looks like he's breaking them and spilling spores the entire time even with his tiny siphon he can't possibly get everything.

I've already done the research. I know what I'm dealing with.

I'm more looking for personal experience with such a small amount of it. Ideally I want to get it the hell out so it won't come back.

 

[Ted]

To be honest the only 100% sure way to get rid of it is to pull the rock and sun bleach it. I have tried pretty much every other solution over the years and that is the only thing that has truly worked.

 

[cvcdrk]

Have you tried the super glue thing?

 

[Ted]

yes...glued my dam fingers to the rock...I have some in my tank as we speak...5 tiny bubbles on one rock...And of course its a rock I cant really take out...:shock:

 

[cvcdrk]

I'm still on the fence with what to do about this. The next time I do a water change I'm going to remove them but I think I'll still use the superglue afterwards.

 

[sen5241b]

Emerald crabs love the stuff. If you go the manual route DO NOT bust it in the tank.

salt 1+ Emeralds will clean it up

 

[cvcdrk]

Well I don't really like the idea of adding livestock to the tank simply because of a couple pieces of nuissance algae. I also know they're hit or miss on whether they will even eat the stuff...so if I got 3...I'd be lucky if 1 ate it.
That being said, it also introduces new things to the tank which I would have to then care for. Emerald crabs require algae in their diet and I have little to no algae in the tank at all, minus this small amount of bubble algae.
Also, when they consume the stuff they break the bubbles. While people will claim they also eat the spores they cannot possibly get them all. I don't want ANY spores in the tank.

So, ideally, I'd like to use the emerald as a last ditch effort should something happen and I get an actual outbreak. Right now, two small pieces doesn't really warrant an army of emerald crabs imo.

 

[Ted]

That is my think as well on emerald crabs...

 

[cvcdrk]

Well I "worked" on the problem.

I removed the large rock from the tank and tried to get the large bubble out of its crveice. It wouldn't budge and I didn't want to mess with it too bad.....since there was no access from the other side I decided the only way to remove it was to use mr. saltwater's scapel idea. I got a super sharp pearing knife and tried to work it out. It did not go well at all.

It only took two little (gentle) nudges with the knife before the whole bubble burst all over the crevice and rock. Some very loud expletives could likely be heard all the way from the church down the street.
I rinsed the area as best as I could with RO water into a throw away container. I scraped the area as well with the knife to remove anything that may have stuck to the rock and rinsed some more as much as possible....but alas, I hold no hopes that some of the spores didn't make it.

As for the piece on the little frag...that frag was secured with putty but I managed to work the frag out of the spot, remove it from the tank, remove that bubble without popping it and rinsed this with RO water as much as possible. I then super glued over the are where it was to be sure I got all of it. However, the damage had already been done.

Next thing I know I look at the first rock and I can see the clear bubble....still attached to the rock. It was clear so when I rinsed I couldn't see it and apparently it was secured to a point where the knife couldn't reach....so it was flapping away. Fantastic.

Anyway, I guess it's a wait and see situation but I may end up getting an army of emerald crabs if I start seeing it pop up....which seems likely. Not a good outcome.