what is valonia

[fishtanknut21]

i have these green bubble looking hard spheres on my live rock. I think they are some type of macroalgae called valonia. could someone please tell me what valonia is and is it good, bad or niether.

[SPC]

Valonia is an algae. IMO it is bad as it can grow out of control in our tanks. If it were me, I would get it out of the tank.
Steve

[gcvt]

I'd recommend removing them too. Grab each one very gently and kind of rock it back and forth until it detaches from the rock. Be careful not to pop them or you may end up with more valonia. Many people, including myself, have introduced Mithrax (Emerald) Crabs to keep valonia under control - it's worked very well for me so far.

[ratziel]

The funny thing is,I heard valonia only grows well in tanks with excellent water quality.I guess you could take as a sort of backhanded compliment.;)

[Reefs1]

I have it in my tank and my water qaulity is excellent; I have it here and there..It never seems to live long in one spot, maybe something is eating it or it's nutrients are not abundant in my tank..I leave it alone though and it seems to all work itself out rather than play the hand of God. Everyone has different experiences, but if it is not growing at a rapid rate I would leave it be, or get something natural to control it. Like crabs, but be careful because they can be more destructive than the Algae itself and run the risk of trading one evil for another. Good luck!

[fishtanknut21]

thanks for the comments. Now i know what they are. they do grow very slowly and have been on the rock for a long time mabye 8 months and have been getting bigger i will probably just let them be and take them out if they get out of control, but i think they look cool on the rock.

[SPC]

Originally posted by fishtanknut21
thanks for the comments. Now i know what they are. they do grow very slowly and have been on the rock for a long time mabye 8 months and have been getting bigger i will probably just let them be and take them out if they get out of control, but i think they look cool on the rock.

Thats what I thought too;) . It was in my tank for about 2 years, just a few here and there. Then it just went crazy and began to cover everything. One of the problems I have noticed with it is that it will grow next to something (sponge, button polyps, base of gorgs) and push against them to the point of growing into the skin of these animals. It dosen't actually live on the living tissue, but instead it grows to the point that the tissue retracts (hope that made sense:D ).
Steve

[Reefs1]

So what did you do to get them under control?? And when they went crazy in your tank were your water parameters off in ANY way??

[jklaw]

I am having the same problem. little patches here and there for 8 months, then explosion. its seems like it getting everywhere. starting to make me very nervous. i introduced 3 emerald crabs and a eiblii imitation tang, but they don't seem to be affecting it at all. any advice would be greatly appreciated.
john

[gcvt]

Originally posted by jklaw
I am having the same problem. little patches here and there for 8 months, then explosion. its seems like it getting everywhere. starting to make me very nervous. i introduced 3 emerald crabs and a eiblii imitation tang, but they don't seem to be affecting it at all. any advice would be greatly appreciated.
john

How long ago did you add the emeralds? It took mine many weeks to get things under control.

[koj11]

Ditto here. My emerald crab was in my tank for almost 2 weeks before I finally started to notice the diminished number of bubbles.

[Mr_Quality]

Funny,

I always thought valonia was a deli meat (spelled vallogna).:lol:

[SPC]

Originally posted by Reefs1
So what did you do to get them under control?? And when they went crazy in your tank were your water parameters off in ANY way??

Well the water parameters seemed to be in check, 0 phosphate, nitrate etc... No other nuisance algae growing in the main tank, caulerpa growing well in the refugium. I have never had a problem with any other algae in the main tank other than a small bout with a bryopsis.

I have 8 emerald crabs, but have not actually witnessed them eat any valonia.

What I did to get it in check was to manually remove it and step up my rock cleaning to a couple of times a week, removing the resultant detritus with a filter pad. I don't think that I have won the battle yet however, I well expect to be removing more within the coming months.

gcvt, any pictures of the emerald crabs that you have?

Steve

[jklaw]

I put the first emerald in about 5 weeks ago. the second day, i noticed it eating some valonia (or bologna as someone said above) about two weeks after that I got two more. then all three pretty much disappeared. i'll see one every now and then. then seem to be scraping the live rock. not directly eating valonia. thankfully i haven't noticed any fish disappearing or corals getting eaten. i'm debating putting some more in and just chilling out and giving these three some more time.
again any comments are greatly appreciated.
John

[jklaw]

That is too funny. has your family tried to get you into rehab. do you find yourself locating the local fish store first thing when you go somewhere new. do you hide the amount of money you spend on your tank. do you often go alone to the fish store b/c your wife and friends refuse to go with you anymore. do you think that people who don't want to see fish and talk fish, etc. are the ones who aren't normal. is so, yes, my friend, you sound like an aquaholic
john

ps as you may have surmised it takes one to know one

[koj11]

Well, since you asked, here's a pic of my emerald crab (http://us.f1.yahoofs.com/users/824e532/bc/aquarium+pics/aquarium+still+59.bmp?bc5XZ2.ArnuoC3um). Be forewarned, though, that this was taken as a still with a video camera, so the file size is very large.

[BigDaddy]

I would recommend removing them when doing water changes, place the vaccum tube over the algea when removing them off of the rock, they are very easy to break open, this prevents any seeds from getting into the tank.

[fishtanknut21]

I was looking at the little green bubbles again today and noticed that they seem to be getting smaller. Mabye the reason I never had an explosion of them in my tank was because i never tried to remove them from the rock, thus breaking them open and letting the seeds out? I think i will try to remove them at some point. thanks for the comments i now know more than i ever wanted to know about this stuff.

[oz]

I have a bunch of those bubble algae. Man the size of those thing. At first I thought, OK size of the ping pong ball gotta be the max it could get. Nope! It just keep getting bigger and BIGGER, now the size of those thing is somewhere between a ping pong ball and a tennis ball.

I bought 2 Mithrax (Emerald) Crabs, they ran away from these giant bubble. LOL.

I'm considering leveling the playing field a bit and get me a Pincushion Urchin, Blue Tuxedo
http://a1272.g.akamai.net/7/1272/1121/20030320004024/www.liveaquaria.com/images/products/large/pw79336pincushion_tuxedo2.jpg

I'll blow the tank up before I surrender to the algae!

[SPC]

Originally posted by oz
I have a bunch of those bubble algae. Man the size of those thing. At first I thought, OK size of the ping pong ball gotta be the max it could get. Nope! It just keep getting bigger and BIGGER, now the size of those thing is somewhere between a ping pong ball and a tennis ball.

I saw someone post a picture on one of the boards a couple years ago of a valonia the size of a volleyball:eek2:.
Steve