Finally an easy solution to bryopsis!

[redfishsc]

Mysterybox, I took down my 80g system partly because I was tired of fighting this plague. I hate it with every fiber of my being.


Here is what I tried and I know did---- and did not---- work. But long term the Tech M did not work. In the end, I managed to reduce the bryopsis growth, but could not stop it, even when I raised my magnesium to 3,000ppm (I only lost a couple heads of torch and frogspawn, despite the INSANE high levels of magnesium). Suffice it to say that 3,000ppm (a good 1800ppm of that, being straight from Tech M) did NOT eradicate the bryopsis and that Tech M cannot be considered a final cure for everyone--- your mileage may vary.


1) Epsom salts gave me absolutely NO results. It raised my mag, and the bryopsis didn't give a chit.

2) Magnesium chloride--- same story.

3) Tech M, I used the "shock and awe" 100ppm increase per day method. First trial, worked like a charm. Second trial, did NOT work at all.

4) My first trial with Tech M completely removed the bryopsis from my system, to the naked eye, for several weeks, maybe a month or two. IT WAS NOT PERMANENT. It did come back.



So here are my conclusions.

1) Start your reef with dry rock. This is the ONLY thing I will ever do now, I don't care how nice the rock is. I never want to suffer this pest again. I will use maybe a single fist-sized rock to seed my tank, but never again will I buy "live rock"--- too damn risky. Too expensive too, if you ask me, that's one of this hobbies biggest wastes of money. Dry rock looks just as nice, and is way cheaper.

2) Only buy frags and colonies that you see absolutely no hint of any pest algae growing on, and check your zoanthid frags like a paranoid lunatic. I've already had to destroy a 4-polyp "Purple Death Paly" frag for having bryopsis growing on it, as well as a GSP colony. I will kill any and every coral that has bryopsis on it that I cannot easily remove (and you can't, from zoanthids). A dead coral is worth it even if I just bought it (which, I did, in the case of those purple deaths).


My battle was due to the bryopsis coming in on my live rock. It was on it when I bought the rock--- it was beautiful live rock---- super purple, tons of life on it. And it was the reason (partly) that I had to take that tank down. I did not know what that crap was, so I scrubbed it off and shrugged it off. I wish I had known, or I would have bleached all that rock from the get-go.

 

[brandon429]

Wow I am sorry to hear about the losses to bryopsis

back at the time this thread was started we didn't know about peroxide

it will kill off bryopsis better than any method we currently know. since the thread is about bryopsis infestation id like to submit my challenge thread to post any tank pest pics you have and we will beat it for sure with a custom peroxide application

We are up to nine pages with total kill of all pest growth, no coral loss

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2082359&page=10

 

[thebanker]

I have some bryopsis, and I'm going to treat it with peroxide and post before / after pics soon. It is on structural rock with with SPS, so I'll be applying it very carefully.

 

[brandon429]

Perfect! Thank you for contributing.
Red brush algae happens to be the communicable disease of my lfs...
Thankfully peroxide is a wide spectrum macro and micro algaecide

Sps aren't particularly sensitive when spot treatments are ran, just the tiniest drop of peroxide will wick into the strands via capillary action can't wait to see your after pics.

 

[redfishsc]

We get red brush algae around here too, but the variety that we have popping up really only likes low-K temp light (10K or lower) and really high nutrient levels. A normal healthy tank that also has really blue lighting probably won't see much of the red brush. I don't know how invasive other forms can be, but we have a few suppliers around here that use natural filtered sunlight, and there's always a small tuft of red brush algae to be found among their frags, but nobody I know of has ever had a problem with it.

 

[thebanker]

Mexican turbo snails LOVE geldinium (red turf algae) and will make short work of it, FWIW.

 

[reefknight]

Mexican turbo snails LOVE geldinium (red turf algae) and will make short work of it, FWIW.

I'll have to grab a few then. This has plagued me for sometime now and FWIW the Tech M treatment does not work against it. I tried it for about 40 days (10 to increase my Mg levels and sustained for 30 days) all it did was cost me several astrea snails and throw off my chemistry which I feel is costing me some LPS livestock. :facepalm:

I'm trying to combat it now with a couple of sea hares and diadema urchins. They're both eating it but its like BBQ right now, low and slow.

 

[Ralph ATL]

Thanks so much for all those updates!

After six weeks of decent results, but not 100% victory, I am moving today to Hydrogen peroxide....

 

[thebanker]

About 2 weeks after all bryopsis was treated with H2O2, I can't find any in my display.

 

[goldmaniac]

since August, i haven't had bryopsis come back since I started with Kent M. I ran out and couldn't find any more, so I switched to Brightwell to get it up to about 1500. After I did that, Bryopsis died off competely. The BRYOPSIS died off completely. I still had hair algae in the tank.

6 months later, no bryopsis. We're still battling hair algae with toothbrushes and scrubbing, but we've now pinned our hopes on coralline algae out-competing the hair on the rocks. Meanwhile, my refugium is now full of caulerpa prolifera, my favorite macroalgae for a refugium. I like it more than chaeto, in fact. Anyway, we're still getting hair algae growing on sand, and on frags, but we're getting a hold on it. I plan on hitting my zoa and mushroom and acan frags with a H2O2 dip soon.

but... no bryopsis anymore, and I've stopped dosing Mg for about 4 months, now.

 

[Elliott]

since August, i haven't had bryopsis come back since I started with Kent M. I ran out and couldn't find any more, so I switched to Brightwell to get it up to about 1500. After I did that, Bryopsis died off competely. The BRYOPSIS died off completely. I still had hair algae in the tank.

6 months later, no bryopsis. We're still battling hair algae with toothbrushes and scrubbing, but we've now pinned our hopes on coralline algae out-competing the hair on the rocks. Meanwhile, my refugium is now full of caulerpa prolifera, my favorite macroalgae for a refugium. I like it more than chaeto, in fact. Anyway, we're still getting hair algae growing on sand, and on frags, but we're getting a hold on it. I plan on hitting my zoa and mushroom and acan frags with a H2O2 dip soon.

but... no bryopsis anymore, and I've stopped dosing Mg for about 4 months, now.

can you provide the details of your H202 dip? (dose of peroxide, volume of seawater, time duration) many thanks

 

[goldmaniac]

i plan on attempting spot-treatment with straight H2O2 aka hydrogen peroxide through a syringe this weekend, but there are two other types of methods using H2O2:

straight dip of live rock:

I have a cantalope-sized piece that had too many crevices for us to get with a toothbrush. It has a few pieces of Kenya Tree coral on it, so i dipped it in this fashion:

filled up a bucket with about 3 inches of 50/50 h2o2 and sea water. i pulled out this rock w/ the Kenya on it, and placed it in the water. set timer for 5 minutes. when timer went off, I turned the rock so that one side was in the solution, set timer for 5 minutes.
I turned the rock every 5 minutes, soaking all parts of the rock but within about 1-2 inches of the kenya. one time, i had a baby (inch-long) sprout of kenya under the solution for 5 minutes. it seemed fine the next day.
Within 48 hours, every single bit of any hair algae was gone. The rock was bleach white; any coralline that was on there (not much) was gone, as well.

The other process that i'm going to try with my zoa frags is to put the frag into some salt water, and the instuctions I read was to slowly add h2o2 until the frags/plugs started to bubble a little bit, and to keep the frag in the solution for 5 minutes. I'll be trying that soon.

 

[goldmaniac]

... and I did not rinse off the piece that I dipped - i just let it drip for 5 seconds and placed it back into the display tank.

 

[ingtar_shinowa]

i do a 4:1 ratio for 5 minutes on my zoas and it works amazing.

 

[goldmaniac]

ok, I tried some H202 dosing over the weekend:

I spot-dosed some rock in the display tank, and I also dipped some zoa frags.

for the spot-dose onto fixed, big rockwork in the tank:
I turned off in-tank Koralia pumps and dosed a side of a big rock with 5 mL syringe of straight h2o2, about a dozen times, on Saturday night. 24 hours later, no noticeable difference. lots of bubbling at the time, but didn't notice a change on Sunday night.

For the frags:

at this concentration: 1/2 gallon tank water, 80 mL h2o2 - for 5 minute dip.
I dosed 4 frags, all 4 were zoas/palys. 1 was an RPE frag.
the next day, algae is pale, starting to fall off. All visible zoas look fine.

Sunday night, last night: I cut the concentration in half - 1/2 gallon of tank water, 40 mL of h2o2. 5 minute dip for each of these.
I will report my findings. I"m curious if the lesser dose is enough to kill this hair algae.
I dipped 4 frags - 2 zoa frags, a toadstool, and a ricordea mushroom.

I will report what else happens -

 

[Elliott]

thanks for sharing your results

 

[brandon429]

Also I wanted to add that kill time is proportional to the age of your peroxide bottle after initial opening

A coke bottle unopened still has notable pressure after a year

But open the lid once, and you can wrench tighten it back on, seal it with makers mark wax, epoxy the lid back on etc and it will have no pressure in a month because the seal was broken. Peroxide holds its supersaturation a little better but anything less than a brand new 75c bottle is wasting time

 

[thebanker]

I love the scientific aspect it's taken. When I moved tanks and had live rock riddled with GHA and bryopsis, I opened the bottle of 3% peroxide and whizzed it all over the rock like I was watering a garden, or writing my name in fresh snow.

It worked lol.

 

[brandon429]

Its the new bubbly heh

 

[thebanker]