Bryopsis overtaking tank

scuzy

scuzy

Active member
I really need help in riding my tank of bryopsis. I've been trying to get rid of it for the last few months and it's starting to lose the battle. I have already tried Tech-M @ 1800 but it's to receding. Every week i have been pulling out a small bucket of this algae and i am almost to the point of nuking my tank. Is there any recommendations before i start throwing in the towel?
 
I used the tech my approach also. I did take it to 2000. What I found important to do is manually pull it out when it reach 2000. In my case seemed as though anywhere that I pulled the remaining bryopsis would turn greyish and die
 
Also wanted to add that identifying bryopsis is the harder part. I believe that only certain varieties react well to tech m
 
I had limited luck with tech M. I couldnt get rid of it though and buying the tech m to keep up my levels was expensive.

I went the cheap route and eliminated it. I simply got peroxide and dipped rock that I could pull out easily in a 50/50 solution for a couple minutes. The base rock I could not pull out I made a peroxide paste (corn starch and peroxide). This allowed me to spot treat the peroxide when doing water changes. During the week I dosed a bit of peroxide to the tank.

Took about 2 weeks in total for me to win and for all of about $14 in peroxide and corn starch. You do need to watch shrimp though around the paste as peroxide is deadly to them in a concentrated form. I also avoided my clams so I can not speak for them. The small few mls I dosed daily had no affect on my shrimp, clams, sps, lps, or mushrooms.
 
Scuzy, I should have listened to you on avoiding the Dino-x... But I had already bought it and didn't want to just throw $50 away. Two weeks in I lost both cleaner shrimp, one Bangaii went carpet surfing. Two of my SPS died completely and most of my others have either locally or largely STN'd. DINO-X IS BAD NEWS!

So now I'm planning to go the next route you tried, Kent Tech M. This Bryopsis is taking over my tank and I'm about where you are, fix it or just nuke and start over.

My plan is to raise 100ppm per day until I hit 1900ppm -2000ppm, maintain until the Bryopsis is totally dead, then let it drop naturally. I've read a few dozen threads on treatment and it sounds like one issue which pops up (if it works) is a big nutrient swing when the Bryopsis starts dying off. So I plan to run Carbon/GFO during treatment, swapping it out once per week. I've also read that water changes might also be good during treatment, dosing up your change water with Tech M to equal tank levels. My theory is that the coral issues people have seen during treatment (bleaching) are as a result of the Bryopsis die off and nutrient swing rather than the Kent Tech M itself.

How long did you maintain at 1800ppm for?
 
anything over 1500 should be fine to get to bryopsis. It only took my tank about 2-3 weeks at a constant 1500 (I tested constantly). It wasnt a plague by any means, but it was on the rocks and glass.

After it was done I kept the tank at 1500 for a VERY long time just to make sure it didnt come back.
 
Mines been 4 weeks and not seeing much effect I them. I pulled more out on a daily basis but it's getting tiresome as I can't reach some of the areas in my large tank. So will peroxide paste work on spot treatment? Do i just squirt some past on the patch of bryopsis?
 
Well, I started Tech M today, we'll see how it goes...Dosed 486ml (86g) in 3 doses spaced 30 minutes apart.

Is this stuff supposed to be yellow? I'm used to my clear BRS Mag. This stuff clearly looks like it contains some sort of contaminants...
 
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Just another thought, have you tried beefing up your CUC? I had bryopsis, used the Tech M, it didn't work for me after a month of dosing, so I stopped. I picked up a few ring cowries and they're actually helping. They don't actually eat the bryopsis, I think they scrape the rock at the base of it and knock it off. Every morning I find chunks caught in the grills of my powerheads and I just pull it out. And now there are clear spots on the rocks that are growing. I'm hoping that the cowries will help me keep the bryopsis in check.
 
When I started dosing, my tank was running about 1425ppm Mag. I began to see results after about 3 days or 1725ppm. Right now I'm at approx. 1825ppm (haven't tested yet today) and the Bryopsis is very light and stringy. There are no more thick clumps and it's mostly just thin strands.

So far no issues with corals, fish, or snails.

I plan to continue to 2000ppm before I stop and maintain. I'll also continue to remove by hand and see if that helps speed it along.
 
Thought I would add my experience with Tech M also. I started dosing with it about 2 weeks ago, pulled the rocks that I could remove easily and brushed all the bryopsis off of those. Hand removed what I could on the larger rocks that I could not remove from the tank, and just about all the algae is gone now. The rocks that I pulled and brushed are free of bryopsis with no new strands popping up and the other rocks have stringy strands that are apparently dying off. I would say the Tech M really worked out well for me, I will continue to dose small amounts to make sure this mess doesn't pop up again and then do a nice sized water change. I'm currently at 1600ppm when I test my Mag.
 
treedog5 said:
Thought I would add my experience with Tech M also. I started dosing with it about 2 weeks ago, pulled the rocks that I could remove easily and brushed all the bryopsis off of those. Hand removed what I could on the larger rocks that I could not remove from the tank, and just about all the algae is gone now. The rocks that I pulled and brushed are free of bryopsis with no new strands popping up and the other rocks have stringy strands that are apparently dying off. I would say the Tech M really worked out well for me, I will continue to dose small amounts to make sure this mess doesn't pop up again and then do a nice sized water change. I'm currently at 1600ppm when I test my Mag.
Click to expand...

Nice! I'm really hoping this works for me too. I was starting to get my tank and corals dialed in, then this Bryopsis thing happened. I learned the hard way to be really careful who you buy corals from!

One other interesting thing I noticed in my tank, is once I hit about 1600ppm, my corals stopped consuming Alk... Anyone else notice that? Luckily I was testing Alk daily due to some fluctuations and I noticed that my Alk was shooting up. I turned off dosing about 3 days ago and it hasn't budged since.
 
I took mine up to 2100 over a weeks time . I was at 1500 before I started . I let sit there for a week didn't do anything except completely bleach my spongodes and my digitata and some of my softies were looking beat up.
 
mine haven't faded much. Will add more. think my tank volume is too large so need more tech-m
 
Grkgod36 said:
I took mine up to 2100 over a weeks time . I was at 1500 before I started . I let sit there for a week didn't do anything except completely bleach my spongodes and my digitata and some of my softies were looking beat up.
Click to expand...

Were you running GFO and Carbon at the time? I have an extremely unscientific theory that some of the coral issues people are seeing are due to the spike in nutrients as the Bryopsis dies. Just curious.
 
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