Bryopsis, Kent Tech M and carbon?

[Allmost]

I'm saying some algae on a rock doesn't change levels you can detect, it does not suck up nutrients to maintain mass as much as it does to grow in the initial phase. in botany and physiology studies its called positive/neg/neutral nitrogen balance, the rates aren't the same throughout the lifespan of the organism in question.


I think a common occurrence on Web boards is to say that algae always commands the same amount of nutrient when I think it levels off and isn't the reason we detect low nutrients. Tanks already having low nutrient get algae, people refuse to see that occasionally.

to my understanding, if conditions are right, every living organism will try to grow, and reproduce, as much as possible, to survive.

if it is not growing, something is limiting its growth. not always po4 ! alot of times Vit B or iron ...

would love to see scientific litreture on the "stages of life span" you are referring to.

Edit : I just realized we are too off topic sorry to the OP. lets get back to tech M program alraedy on progress on RC

 

[brandon429]

I was just taking a rough visual gauge from my own algae over the years, it didn't grow continually so it made me wonder, in the absence of clear mass increase, where it would store the extras having no roots/tubers etc...had there been a study about how much nutrient is pulled from the water by a given algal mass?

It would be neat if there was data on different genera as well, does bryopsis pull out more than a given mass of red brush algae...

 

[Allmost]

probably something else limiting it.

there are studies of the contents of different algae species, grown in water, so the contents of it must have came from the same water I will try to find them online.

 

[AcroporAddict]

I think bryopsis and cockroaches are all that will be left if we have a nuclear holocaust.

 

[agruetz]

In all honesty it is working slowly, with the kent tech-m. However removing all carbon and poly filter etc... was required to show any signs. I also directly shoot the kent tech-m and the byrosis when it is dosed. It is all slowly turning white/clear and dieing. Might be to late for my 1 zoa colony it was in though.

 

[AcroporAddict]

As the Tech M kills the bryopsis, it changes color like you say. It should eventually pull easily off the rocks. You may want to manually remove it as it dies, so you don't have a spike in nutrients from the decay.

 

[agruetz]

Yea I have been removing as much as possible. However I would say this is conclusive evidence that carbon and poly filters will remove whatever the impurity in the kent tech-m is. I would also concur with Randy saying it is not so much about the end mg level it has to do with the change rise in mg. So the rise in mg just correlates to the rise in the impurities. I would imagine if someone had enough time the could figure out what the amount of raise is to more precisely dos it. Just my thoughts though.

 

[AcroporAddict]

Yea I have been removing as much as possible. However I would say this is conclusive evidence that carbon and poly filters will remove whatever the impurity in the kent tech-m is. I would also concur with Randy saying it is not so much about the end mg level it has to do with the change rise in mg. So the rise in mg just correlates to the rise in the impurities. I would imagine if someone had enough time the could figure out what the amount of raise is to more precisely dos it. Just my thoughts though.

Yes, the rise in mag levels is an indirect indicator of the trace affecting the Bryopsis. But as that percentage change is as unknown as what trace is killing the Bryopsis, the 1600-1800 mag level range is used much more by Reefers that have used Tech M in referring to the amount of Tech M they applied. I have not seen anyone use the "percentage change" in magnesium level terminology except in this thread.

Again, anecdotal and testimonial based, etc, I have not heard of anyone eliminating the Bryopsis from their system at a magnesium level below 1600. Most successful users I have read posts from have raised their Mag levels to 1600+ to get a complete kill.

If you had an original magnesium level of 1000, and raised it by 30% to 1300 with Tech M, and left it there for just a couple days, would that kill your bryopsis? Maybe, but I personally doubt it. You need a certain exposure time as well to kill the bryopsis, not just "raise the mag by x percent." You have to "raise the mag by x percent (or mag level) and maintain it at x percent for x many days."

I'm sure there is some trace concentration threshold that has to be crossed in order to kill and not just wound the bryopsis, but again, success also seems to be determined by the exposure time to that mag level, or percentage change, pick your term. The popular methodology is to go by a certain magnesium level range, not a percentage change, and to use a specific exposure time at that level. Is this the right way to so it? Not sure, but this is the way it is done right now.

My original mag levels were 1250. I took mine to 1800 for two weeks and had a complete kill of the bryopsis, which was a 44 percent increase in magnesium level. Taking my mag level to 1600 might have worked as well, but since there is little danger to fish or corals using the additional Tech M just to be sure, it was not a big risk to do so.

 

[agruetz]

Yea, it is definitely a certain amount of certain time. I am sitting around 1600 and it seems to be working. I was @ 1300 - 1350. I like to go slow. This would make an interesting experiment, wish I had more time on my hands oh well it is working thats the most important part without ill affects on anything I can see.

 

[AcroporAddict]

Great that it is working for you. I hope you kill it completely.

 

[Ralph ATL]

In all honesty it is working slowly, with the kent tech-m. However removing all carbon and poly filter etc... was required to show any signs. I also directly shoot the kent tech-m and the byrosis when it is dosed. It is all slowly turning white/clear and dieing. Might be to late for my 1 zoa colony it was in though.

Yes, you must remove all types of media such as carbon, poly filter, etc....albeit, it is anecdotal....however, it makes no noticing impact otherwise....D'oh!

Happy it's working!

The one media that I never removed during treatment was GFO, hummmm....

 

[brandon429]

had a thought

You know what put me on the track to algae uptake doubting-

The mangrove fad of 2003. Everyone had this huge plant chock full of nitrate and phosphate laden tissue stuck in their sandbed yet no one ever scrubbed nitrates with this single stalked plant that certainly can be appealing for other reasons.

Does it command nitrate and phosphate from the water to stay green/grow ever so slowly? Sure

But could we measure and benefit from the rate, nope.

Since they didn't filter, due to slow uptake, people quit using them as the sponges we had been reading about during the boom. We were told a plant in the water = measurable uptake by necessity


Inversely I consider the mass of plant loading required in a functioning ATS let's say for a 90 gallon reef

How big and fugly are those growth trays

You'd think if a little lettuce in the water uptakes all available nitrate and phosphate the Adey crew could use far smaller trays?

 

[tmz]

The one media that I never removed during treatment was GFO, hummmm....

Why not?

 

[tmz]

algae uptake doubting- viva peroxide.
You may be misunderstanding it. If nuisance algae is growing there is available phosphate:most are limited at levels below ..03ppm according to the marine biology studies noted in the article and ime,. So for many of the nuisance algaes if the phosphate is extremely low it just won't grow and will wane. You can look up the limitations fo rvarious algaes with some research, if you are interested.

Here is a helpful reference:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/9/chemistry

Turf scrubbers and refugia are large the algae because it needs room to grow an be harvested. Undersized macro algae refugia often won't keep pace with imports either. Drop the PO4 and macroalgaes will shrivel up . Raise it and harvesting chores increase; simple,really. Many including me use macroalgae and other methods along with it to maintain low N and P. A large enough refugia system could do it but is cumbersome at best. Heck , I even dribble some H2O2 on frag plugs for turf algae,etc.

Viva H2O2
Many use H2O2 for dips and out of tank treatments in my area and have for qutie sometime. There is nothing new in this. It destroys organics and is quite effective on even red algaes. As an in tank treatment it is very risky to desirable organisms. Next time you use it just watch pods scamper and mini serpent starfish die on the spot.
Many , take heavily infested rock and give it a bleach bath and an acid bath. H2O2 dribbling /bathing is much milder form of the bleach part of this common practice and can work well on certain algaes but does nothing for phosphte or metals adhering to surfaces. It can be a useful tool but some corals are very sensitive to it ;echinophylia for example.

 

[brandon429]

Pods do not die requisitely I have been using it for a while now, and across several well covered threads we have no reports of benthic loss, I have found six common organisms affected by tank dosing and the ones you mention aren't in the list. Just in our thread here at Rc, I can't count the number of reports that zero benthic life was lost on 3% tank wide dosing, only the target. In fairness I have seen other threads report loss of pods, just not in our guided ones where we used a consistent 1:10 dosing run

I would say the opposite of what you posted is truer...target dosing will make a localized loss vs tankwide dilution which we see does not.

I found peroxide references in the reef ranging back to 98, what we have been trying to do lately is debunk old myths about it and try to form consistency in outcomes across tanks/formulate reliable lists of sensitives so conjecture isn't as limiting as it has been in the past. The coral you mentioned may very well be a sensitive, I don't recall it being featured in our hundreds of before and after pics

To accelerate the testing I posted video of how i've began using 35% in a gallon vase packed with thousands of benthic organisms and mixed sps/lps

There's even a shot of corallimorphs being directly dosed with 35% for five minutes emersed having no effect on the target.

More studies are needed to understand heritable traits that allow this and are observable across different tanks imo

There is a lack of understanding between the projected losses of peroxide dosing and actuality, the thread has enough testimony to recommend a new set of predictions based on observations, not just guesses that such a harsh oxidizer must be bad...see thread if interested.

What id like to see is a proof study that a rock with bryopsis on it changes phosphate levels through heavy uptake, such that if you remove the rock magically binding this po4 the tank would register a notable spike

I thought the mangrove fad was a fair comparison.

 

[tmz]

I've seen the thread . My pods and serpent stars die with spot dosing or dips . Your list is wrong. Not guessing at all. Regardless of your list of anecdotes ; they die;it's simple to see.
I wouldn't make it up. I don't dose it to the tank ,so you missed the point.
Dosing it to the tank in low enough doses to avoid harm to benthic fuana and other beneficial organisms will do what exactly of benefit ?


What id like to see is a proof study that a rock with bryopsis on it changes phosphate levels through heavy uptake, such that if you remove the rock magically binding this po4 the tank would register a notable spike

That would prove what; that content analysis of the algae doesn't?

What does PO4 species binding to calcium carbonate, chemically ; not magically,( interesting and irksome choice of words). have to do with bryopsis?
Algae uses it as it grows. It can't make it;s own ,so what's in it comes from it's envirornment. That's simple; isn't it? Remove the phospahte and the algae will wane.Remove the algae and the phosphate it was using will remain. Remove a leaching rock with algae on it and the consumer and the source will be removed;whether that action would result in more or less PO4 would depend on the grwoth of the algae vis a vie the PO4 leaching and many other variables . What's the point?
If it's the rock that's leaching PO4 take it out put it a bin of water free of PO4 and measure it daily and you'll see if it's leaching.

I'm not sure why you think algae doesn't use phosphate. I'm really not sure what your point is and can't make any sense of it.

 

[brandon429]

An additional summary of the last few pages:

when people test low in phosphates or nitrates, yet report a problem with bryopsis, board posters tell them the relatively small mass of algae, or gha MUST be sucking it out of solution and binding it, because its impossible in your mind that a low nutrient system can produce algae. I've given the examples of the ocean producing algae/bryopsis in the absence of grazers, and that water would show zero too on a hobby test kit

I gave examples of mangroves which you've skipped over twice now. Heavy biomass plant, that when stuck in a sump, commands enough nutrient to thrive but not enough to measure on these kits as a benefit. You can have a bryopsis problem/gha problem and it not be tied to a nutrient issue was one point. I learned to not see every bryopsis problem as time to strip more phosphate, that's different from the masses so it tends to draw out arguments like we have here. I said the command for nutrients isn't consistent for a given rock with bryopsis, it doesn't magically keep binding nutrients every day such that you register none or ATS crews could get their benefits off a little patch kept in the sump. The magic phrase was denoting where this would all be stored in an organism that isn't growing consistently day to day but in steady state and without storage apparatus such as tubers or roots. I don't think a strand of bryopsis just keeps taking on phosphate heavily after its reached its steady state mass like it might in the initial growth phase.

I don't buy the notion that test kits register low phosphates just because the tank has some algae that when measured as dry weight sample really wouldn't add up to much, a small infestation is over-attributed as a very powerful nutrient scrub.

When you can get gha or bryopsis, the pest in this thread (not 9 different macros like the link you provided) in the absence of a nutrient problem, then it can be beaten in other ways that are targeted to the organism, the solution in many cases doesn't require stripping phosphate further when it already tests at an acceptable level.

You can use tech m, peroxide, or grazers effectively and not have recurring problems in many cases. The op here actually used peroxide on part of her tank, I saw no reports from her about pod loss? The bandwagon currently advises 100% of people with any degree of infestation to strip water nutrients to an obsessive level, I see that theme recurring across boards.

If your pods die always with diluted 3% peroxide use that's too bad, but it won't impact what others are seeing (they don't die) in numerous linked threads. The reefcentral, nano reef.com, 3 reef, r 2 r peroxide threads all have the observations they indeed do not die and you can read that in our thread here in the nano forum. You can be adamant they do, and we'll just keep collecting and posting they don't. its this kind of differential outcome that is very interesting to me... You had mentioned pod death as a requisite side effect of peroxide dosing, and I felt like it was a debatable point based on my obsessive work with peroxide and the countless testimonies assembled. Based on the pictures and words of others our anecdotes are pretty darn effective; after 21 pages we're still curing, and sustaining tanks, without much mention of phosphate or pod loss from over 700 posters/dosers

Its an anti-nutrient stripping bandwagon thread as much as it is a collection of wonderful before and after anecdote pics

People had infestations that were rampant even after prescribed water stripping wasnt paying off. the negatives stated about peroxide don't line up with what we're collecting with all these anecdotes...


I'm also not a fan of etching off the outer layer of bound phosphate from a rock with muriatic acid only to turn around and place said rock back in a tank ready to coat the clean layer again with phosphates added on a daily basis. But I enjoy reading all the work that goes into such a burning run, its fascinating what these reefs can tolerate.

 

[brandon429]

Lynn even though your thread got jacked some good may become of it, in the very least it has passionate responses and a whole lot of Droid swipe texting practice...

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'm not sure I understand what the ongoing debate is about here. Bryopsis is known to be an algae which can grow at relatively low levels of nutrients. That's why it is not easily dealt with by reducing nutrients. And in fact, there is no inherent reason to assume that any algae can be killed off by reducing nutrients before we start to kill off things we want to keep that also need nutrients (such as corals).

Nevertheless, any growing algae is taking up N and P somehow. There is no way around that, and if folks have enough rapidly growing algae, that algae can make a big dent in the amount of measurable N and P. A tiny amount of growing algae, however, won't make a noticeable effect on the huge amount of N and P flowing through any system being fed reasonable amounts of fish foods.

So in other words, the tiny amount of algae isn't making the levels low or undetectable, but it is still requiring N and P.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed. I'm very impressed you are up this early reefing that's awesome I figured id be the only one ~ right now its 730 in Sweetwater TX

I guess its 9 ish for you that's still early reefing for a Saturday lol