Bryopsis control with lots of Cheato?

CTaylor

Active member
Hi,
I noticed one of my tanks has no bryopsis at all. I guess it's possible none ever got into that tank, not even a cell of it. But I dont see how it's never been introduced somehow. It has LOTS of caulerpa and I feed it pretty well for the only 4 small medium fish in it. It's a 40 gall max total system. Two OSFF and 2 neon gobies. I feed them a lot as they love to eat. No nuisance algae other than the caulerpa, but that's posibly keeping down the other bad stuff. I have nerites which keep any cyano away as well.

My bigger 110 reef though will easily grow bryopsis if I dont keep on top of my Mex Turbo population. They die for whatever reason or are killed by the hermits. To keep the bry down in that tank (i do NOT want caulerpa touching it), would a LOT of chaeto rapidly gowing do that? I have a approx 7 gall on refug area in my supm with a good fuge light, the chaeto grows thick and well. But if I got a separate cheato reactor. would that basically strangle off the bryopsis? Like I said the mex turbos keep it clean , but it's impoossible to keep up with the population over time.

TY!
 
I didn't think any snail would eat bryopsis ?...i got rid of my bryopsis years ago by cutting the nutrients down to close to zero (I vodka dose).....this is tricky though cause many corals like some nutrients
 
I didn't think any snail would eat bryopsis ?...i got rid of my bryopsis years ago by cutting the nutrients down to close to zero (I vodka dose).....this is tricky though cause many corals like some nutrients

I shouldnt have brought that up about mex turbos
Has anyone had bryopsis and used a LOT of growing chaeto as a sink of nutrients which worked to keep tank clean of bryopsis?
 
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I also have a bryopsis problem. I think it will eventually go away like all other nutrient algae IME so far with the help of macroalgae and an ATS while still keeping enough nitrates for the corals, it's just a matter of time...
 
I shouldnt have brought that up about mex turbos
Has anyone had bryopsis and used a LOT of growing chaeto as a sink of nutrients which worked to keep tank clean of bryopsis?

I don't know which is the stronger ! maybe the bryopsis will kill the chaeto ?
 
Thankyou ThePurple.. My tank is 3 years old now so I dont know when that will happen :) .... though it did go through other stages like cyano before bryopsis. Like I said I have it undercontrol other means but it's not reliable. I notice there is no other nuisance algae in my refugim packed with chaeto no bry, nothing else. But it's also a different light - a tunze refug light (which is amazing btw). Maybe it's just not a large enough volume of 'fuge. So it's why I was thinking if I add on a chaeto reactor it might get the bryopsis under control in the DT. At same time I dont want to strangle the corals of nutrients. That balance ugh :)
 
Thankyou ThePurple.. My tank is 3 years old now so I dont know when that will happen :) .... though it did go through other stages like cyano before bryopsis. Like I said I have it undercontrol other means but it's not reliable. I notice there is no other nuisance algae in my refugim packed with chaeto no bry, nothing else. But it's also a different light - a tunze refug light (which is amazing btw). Maybe it's just not a large enough volume of 'fuge. So it's why I was thinking if I add on a chaeto reactor it might get the bryopsis under control in the DT. At same time I dont want to strangle the corals of nutrients. That balance ugh :)


I second this. I had some weird stuff growing in my DT which the experts here guessed was Bryopsis. Also a bit of green hair algae. What I did was to put chaeto in my fuge with a cheap red light from Amazon. It grows well and I also get some hair algae along with that, but the DT is now free of bad algae. However just like CTaylor said, there's a balance you need to take care of for the corals needs of nutrients.
 
I second this. I had some weird stuff growing in my DT which the experts here guessed was Bryopsis. Also a bit of green hair algae. What I did was to put chaeto in my fuge with a cheap red light from Amazon. It grows well and I also get some hair algae along with that, but the DT is now free of bad algae. However just like CTaylor said, there's a balance you need to take care of for the corals needs of nutrients.

Maybe if I prune out the Chaeto in my fuge more it will allow faster growth. twice a moth not just once a month mayve that will help. Also more skimming. I'll see if that works.
 
If your snails are keeping it at bay, then it sounds like the first thing you should do is re-home the hermits. Also manual removal may not get it all, but it cuts it down to the nubs, which the snails, etcetera can finish off. If you have a fuge full of chaeto that is growing well, I doubt adding a chaeto reactor would help.

It is helpful that you know the root problem: overfeeding.

A healthy, fast-growing chaeto does indicate that nutrient levels are too high for a reef tank. Good reef conditions make for lousy chaeto growth. A twice a month chaeto export may help, but don't prune it down too much. The larger the plant mass, the more it can suck up. Increasing the light or moving the light closer to the fuge and/or increasing flow through it could help.

Once you get those nutrients down to where you want them, you may want to diversify your fuge with a fast grower like Ulva, and a slow grower like Grasilaria. This will allow your fuge to roll with nutrient spikes and dips.

Sorry I rambled. Hopefully there's something in there you can use. Good luck!
 
I can't speak for the chaeto but if it doesn't work, I've had great luck with the Fluconazole treatment. I didn't have a refugium at that time, but the bryopsis was completely eliminated permanently. It was so easy and effective too. I dont know if the Fluconazole will harm chaeto though since I didn't have any macro algae at that time. It's been over a year and the bryopsis never returned. The regular gha did but that's because I wasn't rinsing my frozen food and phosphate was too high. Even then, no bryopsis.
 
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I dont really know the issue is overfeeding. I feed the small biomass of fish Iuite a bit but not a lor overall for a 110 gallon tank.

Skimming more (again) might help. But at same time probably not enough and my bro free tacitic I've used I know is not easy to keep up with.SOOOO I want to exterminate it lol and I want to use Fluc. I'm going to research it more. I know many have succeded, some failed. ANd I think I know why they failed.

back to Michael. Probably adding a haeto reactor won't work, your right. The bry in the tank might be getting nutients from the rocks it's on, etc. Not just the water column. I have to make sure to prune it enough as after a few weeks, you can barely see the light penetrade the chaeto, it becomes caked like a spoonge closer to the light, not allowing light to pass very far. My fuge might be 5 gallons of water actually since it's not full to top of water. So it's a balance of having enough to have max growth rate and to also have enough light penetration. I have a tunze fuge light and a 'mag fuge' light also.
 
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I cant get it to tumble.. I woudl ahve to have a fairly small ball of it for it to have any space to move at all. Good idea though.
And another anthias is about to die a few days after brushing bry off the rocks. I had this happen last time I scrubbed off rocks. Few days later bye bye anthias. That's getting wayy off subject, so just an anecdote you might not want to scrub it off rocks in tank with certain animals in tank.
 
Tumbling chaeto is great, but not practical for everyone. You can manually turn it periodically. That should work fine.
 
In my last tank's refugium I had a mass the size of a basketball---it never rolled, but it certainly grew.
 
In my last tank's refugium I had a mass the size of a basketball---it never rolled, but it certainly grew.

Mine just gets denser and desner..when I prune it out I misx it up wiht my hands to un bunch up the remaining to allow light through it.
 
I just dosed refulx early Sat am, so I just completed 4 1/2 total days. I think it's working, though my bry either disappeared no signs of turning lighter at all, or other larger patches are slowly getting lighter and less dense it seems. I'm worried any bryopsis cells that are not in well lit areas will remain to reinfect later. Though this is starting to get off subject of the thread :-D . But I'm glad I pulled the Fluconozole trigger.. I was also worried with skimmer off and no carbon in add'n to the fluc chem that things would get 'sick'. Almost the opposite so far actually. I'm watching my alk very closely though.
 
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