scuzy
Active member
A Natural Proven way to rid your tank of Bryopsis
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2554700
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2554700
DivingTheWorld's Custom Leemar 80g Rimless Reef
- Thread starter DivingTheWorld
- Start date
maddhugan
New member
wow, your corals are looking great. I like the Zoa and bird's nest. Did you get small 3 or 4 head zoa frag and now they multiplied like that?
well, I looked at the photos of yours (bryopsis) and I just made my tank wet 3 weeks ago and I'm seeing something similar to that. First I thought it was hair algae but not after looking at your photos I'm re-thinking. Could it be bryopsis? what is the difference between bryopsis and hair algae? are they one and the same? I think I have to rise my mag too I guess. lol
well, I looked at the photos of yours (bryopsis) and I just made my tank wet 3 weeks ago and I'm seeing something similar to that. First I thought it was hair algae but not after looking at your photos I'm re-thinking. Could it be bryopsis? what is the difference between bryopsis and hair algae? are they one and the same? I think I have to rise my mag too I guess. lol
DivingTheWorld
Active member
Lol, yeah I saw that one. I've tried Turbos multiple times and I could swear at least some were Mexican. Who knows, I'll look into it.
maddhugan
New member
foxface
foxface
will a magnificent foxface will eat the hair algae looking thing? any advice would be appreciated. I have started tanks before but never ever had this problem, but this time around it is different. Different gifts we get at different times I guess.
foxface
will a magnificent foxface will eat the hair algae looking thing? any advice would be appreciated. I have started tanks before but never ever had this problem, but this time around it is different. Different gifts we get at different times I guess.
DivingTheWorld
Active member
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of zoas but there are a few types I like which are super colorful. They seem to grow like crazy in my tank. That picture of the Bam Bams was just a small frag that I set there and got lazy and didn't move for a while. One thing let to another and now I have a colony...
As far as the Bryopsis, it's not like hair algae. Bryopsis looks more like a fern when you look at it up close. It's the weed from hell and can't be stopped! That's why scuzy is starting from scratch. I would if I had the $, but my wife would kill me. Plus I have a feeling that I'd end up spending a bunch of money replacing everything only to find it pop up again... Bryopsis can't really be killed by anything other than Kent Tech M magnesium as far as I can tell. There really isn't anything which eats it except for isolated SUPER LUCKY people who have got fish or snails to.
maddhugan
New member
now you scare me
now you scare me
mine doesn't look like fern, it goes along with the waves and moves and looks like hair algae. But I see it everywhere, i.e., almost on all region of the rock, and all of the rocks. some spots even grow on glass. May be I will post a photo in my thread. You kind of scare me now and I hope it is not bryopsis. I already got panicked once after releasing the fish into tank because a spot on powder blue looked like ich and now I can say it may not be. I will have to wait a bit longer to confirm that and I hope this is hair algae. Where did you buy your rocks from when you started the tank. do you have any idea where you got it from to begin with?
now you scare me
mine doesn't look like fern, it goes along with the waves and moves and looks like hair algae. But I see it everywhere, i.e., almost on all region of the rock, and all of the rocks. some spots even grow on glass. May be I will post a photo in my thread. You kind of scare me now and I hope it is not bryopsis. I already got panicked once after releasing the fish into tank because a spot on powder blue looked like ich and now I can say it may not be. I will have to wait a bit longer to confirm that and I hope this is hair algae. Where did you buy your rocks from when you started the tank. do you have any idea where you got it from to begin with?
scuzy
Active member
Yeah bryopsis is the weed from hell. It grew an overtook my tank killed off most my corals due to suffocating them from light and stuff. It's really bad stuff. I hope these Mexican turbos work. If so it really brings you a stereotype that you can't control Tory garden without having a Mexican gardener. [emoji1]
DivingTheWorld
Active member
Lol.
@ Maddhugan, I wish it was as simple as adding the wrong rocks. When I started my tank, I did everything right, used all dry rocks, "cooked" the phosphates out of them, was super careful with the fish, dipped all corals, etc. But I had never heard of Bryopsis, so when there were a few strands on corals I bought locally, I didn't think twice. I just thought it was hair algae.
That's how it starts, just one or two strands. They break off and float around till they attach somewhere else. Honestly I think Bryopsis is everywhere now in the reefing industry. Everyone has (or has had) Bryopsis in one fashion or another. Personally I'm hoping that it's so common that someone figures out a foolproof way of dealing with it.
I'm happy to say that in my tank it never really got out of control. It was annoying, but never hurt any of my corals. Battling it did by trying crazy chemicals like Algae-X/Dino-X. That did in a bunch of my corals. So far I have never witnessed anything eating it in my tank, not tangs, not turbos, Astreas, Trochus, Sea Hares, Lawnmower Blennies, etc. Right now I have my first live mail order in for a few frags from LiveAqua/Divers Den and I threw a Lettuce Nudibranch in on the order. Like all of the above creatures, I've read that they eat Bryopsis. We shall see...
The one thing that seems to work and didn't cause much adverse affects in my tank was Kent Tech M Magnesium. It's not cheap, but it's much cheaper than replacing corals and constantly pruning Bryopsis off your rocks. A few of my corals bleached as a result (Cyphastrea, a couple of zoas), but everything else looked fine, in fact many looked better than ever before.
@ Maddhugan, I wish it was as simple as adding the wrong rocks. When I started my tank, I did everything right, used all dry rocks, "cooked" the phosphates out of them, was super careful with the fish, dipped all corals, etc. But I had never heard of Bryopsis, so when there were a few strands on corals I bought locally, I didn't think twice. I just thought it was hair algae.
That's how it starts, just one or two strands. They break off and float around till they attach somewhere else. Honestly I think Bryopsis is everywhere now in the reefing industry. Everyone has (or has had) Bryopsis in one fashion or another. Personally I'm hoping that it's so common that someone figures out a foolproof way of dealing with it.
I'm happy to say that in my tank it never really got out of control. It was annoying, but never hurt any of my corals. Battling it did by trying crazy chemicals like Algae-X/Dino-X. That did in a bunch of my corals. So far I have never witnessed anything eating it in my tank, not tangs, not turbos, Astreas, Trochus, Sea Hares, Lawnmower Blennies, etc. Right now I have my first live mail order in for a few frags from LiveAqua/Divers Den and I threw a Lettuce Nudibranch in on the order. Like all of the above creatures, I've read that they eat Bryopsis. We shall see...
The one thing that seems to work and didn't cause much adverse affects in my tank was Kent Tech M Magnesium. It's not cheap, but it's much cheaper than replacing corals and constantly pruning Bryopsis off your rocks. A few of my corals bleached as a result (Cyphastrea, a couple of zoas), but everything else looked fine, in fact many looked better than ever before.
maddhugan
New member
this is awesome info
this is awesome info
Ok so you got it from a frag you bought. I will watch every frag like a hawk from now onwards. Anyway, all of my frags spend 3 months in quarantine (fish free quarantine tank) tank, so I should be easily able to notice if ny hitch hiked. Good to know this info and it is always good to have this kind of info in the back of your mind, and I won't be surprised if I ever encountered this in future coming yrs.
I have heard about rising the mag from one other friend of mine but he never made the bryopsis problem like a big deal or anything. he was able to quickly get rid of it. The way he got it was from the rocks (not from frags), he bought these engineered rocks that look purple already (even without coralline algae) and it just came from there as soon as it saw water. I would assume when the engineered rock was made, some bryopsis was there and made the bryopsis seeded rock. I won't tell you guys the name of the shop where he got that rock from in the forum though. I guess the rock was engineered like that. lol
anyway that was a yr and a half ago and he was easily able to solve this problem and move on, and I have seen his tank off and on several times and it looked clean. Thanks for this awesome info. BTW I don't have ich and I found that today. If it was ich then the trophont would have fallen off by now, today is the 8th day and I still see that spot. Trophonts can't cling to the body of the fish more than 7 days. Anyway I will keep that tang in the tank for few more days just to make sure. Lot of minor infections can easily look like ich and misguide us. I'm very happy so far, and now I need to get rid of my hair algae. every inch of the rock and sand has it but they aren't big. You can just see them emerging and it is not easily noticeable now, one has to look carefully to notice the hair algae.
I saw my masked swallow tail angel already eating some of the hair algae. So I'm content for now.
people say aquarium calms down people and it is supposed to be very soothing, but all it brings to us is stress, pain and loss of wealth. lol
well it is so much fun though. cool stuff too.
this is awesome info
Ok so you got it from a frag you bought. I will watch every frag like a hawk from now onwards. Anyway, all of my frags spend 3 months in quarantine (fish free quarantine tank) tank, so I should be easily able to notice if ny hitch hiked. Good to know this info and it is always good to have this kind of info in the back of your mind, and I won't be surprised if I ever encountered this in future coming yrs.
I have heard about rising the mag from one other friend of mine but he never made the bryopsis problem like a big deal or anything. he was able to quickly get rid of it. The way he got it was from the rocks (not from frags), he bought these engineered rocks that look purple already (even without coralline algae) and it just came from there as soon as it saw water. I would assume when the engineered rock was made, some bryopsis was there and made the bryopsis seeded rock. I won't tell you guys the name of the shop where he got that rock from in the forum though. I guess the rock was engineered like that. lol
anyway that was a yr and a half ago and he was easily able to solve this problem and move on, and I have seen his tank off and on several times and it looked clean. Thanks for this awesome info. BTW I don't have ich and I found that today. If it was ich then the trophont would have fallen off by now, today is the 8th day and I still see that spot. Trophonts can't cling to the body of the fish more than 7 days. Anyway I will keep that tang in the tank for few more days just to make sure. Lot of minor infections can easily look like ich and misguide us. I'm very happy so far, and now I need to get rid of my hair algae. every inch of the rock and sand has it but they aren't big. You can just see them emerging and it is not easily noticeable now, one has to look carefully to notice the hair algae.
I saw my masked swallow tail angel already eating some of the hair algae. So I'm content for now.
people say aquarium calms down people and it is supposed to be very soothing, but all it brings to us is stress, pain and loss of wealth. lol
well it is so much fun though. cool stuff too.
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DivingTheWorld
Active member
Besides the holidays, one of the reasons I've been on auto pilot with the tank lately, is we took the family to Asia (Taiwan & Thailand) for a few weeks.
I've been gradually increasing my time away from the tank from 1 week, 2 weeks, and now 3 weeks. Everything went awesome with the Apex and I have two cams, one facing the tank, and one under the stand to monitor. Between the Apex auto feeder and the neighbor kid dropping in frozen food every few days, things went perfectly. My tank evaporates just over 1 gallon of R/O per day, so I set up a Brute with 30 gallons and my Tunze 3155 kept levels correct. Modern tank automation really is amazing.
Here's some pics from our visit to Thailand. This was our second liveaboard trip to the Similan Islands and we had a great time!
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2556090
I've been gradually increasing my time away from the tank from 1 week, 2 weeks, and now 3 weeks. Everything went awesome with the Apex and I have two cams, one facing the tank, and one under the stand to monitor. Between the Apex auto feeder and the neighbor kid dropping in frozen food every few days, things went perfectly. My tank evaporates just over 1 gallon of R/O per day, so I set up a Brute with 30 gallons and my Tunze 3155 kept levels correct. Modern tank automation really is amazing.
Here's some pics from our visit to Thailand. This was our second liveaboard trip to the Similan Islands and we had a great time!
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2556090
DivingTheWorld
Active member
My tank is really getting dialed in and the corals are growing. I need to post some new pics but recently Photobucket changed their policies and all my free account pics are super small now. I need to set up a paid account or use a different pic posting site. Really annoying...
I've made a few changes to my overall tank maintenance and dosing. I sucked out all my sand about 6 months ago. I was just getting annoyed by it blowing all over the place. Since going bare bottom everything is looking much better. I beat my Bryopsis. It's now gone for good.
I was doing 20g water changes 1/m, but changed that to 10g every 2 weeks. Same amount of water but I think it's helping that it's changed more often. I also picked up a big 44g Brute so now I only need to mix/dose my make up water about once every 2 months. That's making things easier.
I also stopped dosing foods. I was dosing Pohls Xtra Special, Reef Roids, and Reef Chili. I stopped all of them, one at a time. My nitrates are staying high, 20-50ppm and my phosphates are staying low, +/-0.05. Coral health and colors are looking good.
I've got some new fish and some new corals. Hopefully I'll get my pictures figured out soon and post some new pics.
maddhugan
New member
photobucket did that?
photobucket did that?
For me the photo bucket still works. Sucks to hear that photobucket has gone bad for you, that ,means its just the matter of time and they might make my account like that too one day.
I can't wait to see the photos of your corals man. I'm glad you got rid of the bryopsis.
photobucket did that?
For me the photo bucket still works. Sucks to hear that photobucket has gone bad for you, that ,means its just the matter of time and they might make my account like that too one day.
I can't wait to see the photos of your corals man. I'm glad you got rid of the bryopsis.
DivingTheWorld
Active member
Ok, here's some updated pics. Hopefully these don't look too bad for an almost 2 year old tank. I will note that the first year was essentially an exercise in futility waiting for my tank to mature and watching Acros die. Then the next 6-8 months were a Bryopsis battle. Now the tank is really doing great so I hope to have better pics (larger corals) in a future update!
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WLachnit
Active member
I always find it interesting the number of people that see improvements when they stop dosing foods.....
DivingTheWorld
Active member
I think it really depends on your levels. If you have a new tank, less than a year old or one with very few fish, you probably need to dose to bring up the nutrients (generally Nitrate). Once your tank is seasoned and you have enough fish to maintain the nutrients, no dosing is needed.
I went through a lot of learning with the tank. I started with ultra low nutrients and found my acros suffered. I then started dosing and saw big improvements in my acros, but also increases in Algae. Once my nutrients stayed at increased levels on their own, I was able to stop dosing.
So I think it really depends on where your tank is at. I wouldn't say dosing is bad. Some tanks need it and some don't. The key is to hit that sweet spot where you don't need to.
africangrey
Active member
Are you using zeovit, my tank started with full zeovit system half a year ago and still battling the dino infestation because of the 0 phosphate level (Hanna Ultra low checker).
The Zeostart I have been dosing daily to maintain proper bacteria level contains silicate which fuels the dino growth. I am heavily invested in zeovit system with tons of zeolit bags sitting on the shelf and I guess I have to be patient and wait for the system to stabilize.
The Zeostart I have been dosing daily to maintain proper bacteria level contains silicate which fuels the dino growth. I am heavily invested in zeovit system with tons of zeolit bags sitting on the shelf and I guess I have to be patient and wait for the system to stabilize.
DivingTheWorld
Active member
Yeah, I did some of that, but nothing now. The first thing I tried was a combo of Reef Chili, Reef Roids, and Acropower. The combo of the three definitely helped my acros start doing better and coloring up, but I still couldn't get noticeable levels of Nitrate.
So I experimented with some dosing of Nitrate to bring those levels up and saw even better colors. Once my Nitrate hit about 10-20ppm I stopped.
I then did some ZEOvit (I stopped Reef Chili, Reef Roids and Acropower). I did some dosing of Pohl's Xtra Special and Coral Snow. I didn't do much with the Coral Snow as I found that even though I was keeping it in the fridge, it started smelling super funky. The Pohl's Xtra Special was definitely helping but when I tested it, I found it was essentially just boosting Nitrate.
Once my Nitrate started holding steady around 20, I stopped dosing everything and it's been holding for a few months now. I maintain my Phosphate around 0.01-0.04 (Hanna Phosphorus).
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