Killing Bryopsis with hyposalinity?

[Caragol]

I'd like to kill what's in the display first and foremost. The display is about 100% green with the exception of two small frags. After that I can try to control it either with high mag levels, good water, or my other thought was just keeping a bryopsis covered rock in the refugium. Someone somewhere had success with that as well. I guess the idea is that the bryopsis there is happy and growing using up whatever nutrients and thriving with the longer photoperiod keeping it minimal in the display with a shorter photoperiod.

Starting over seems near impossible. You can't always just dry out rock, they can keep moisture in there and keep that bryopsis going. Freshwater won't kill it. So baking it in an oven is left and there's just too much now.

 

[Caragol]

#@$%@#)$*!!!!!!! The second auction I won refunded my money too because they were also out of stock, but this time only after a week of not responding to emails and me waiting and not buying it from somewhere else. I'm sitting here with a gallon of Kent Tech M and no TEST KIT!!!

 

[seapug]

is there an aquarium shop you can go to nearby for a test? It takes a LOT of tech m to raise it an appreciable about, so take a water sample before, then add a double dose of tech m then get another sample and take it to the LFS to see what the change is. you can work out a dosing scheme that way.

 

[Caragol]

I'm not sure of a LFS that could do this for me... not without a good half hour drive... But a local reefer might be able to help.... good call, thanks!

 

[TWallace]

Re: Bryopsis

Re: Bryopsis

I'd start dosing based on the instructions on the Tech M bottle. An overdose of magnesium isn't likely to harm anything. People have had it over 2000ppm with no ill effects. If you haven't dosed any yet, I'd assume your current level is around 1150ppm, especially if you use Instant Ocean salt.

As mentioned above, magnesium doesn't seem to completely eradicate bryopsis, it just makes it go away until the magnesium drops. I've been keeping my tank around 1600ppm magnesium for several months now. No bryopsis, and everything's healthy.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10840873#post10840873 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by eddtango
Use R/O water for top-off and salt-mix. Pull out as much algae as you can manually and do regular weekly water changes.

This makes me think you've never had bryopsis.

 

[nhlives]

I think I saw a post somewhere lately that suggested that it is sulfates not MG that was helpful. In other words dosing with magnesium chloride hexahydrate didn't help while Epson Salt (contains sulfate) did. Anyone see that post?

 

[zooqi]

This is how I have done it before..
I took about 600 LBS rock and put it in a big rubbermaid tub. Filled it with water (fresh) and put few pumps in it. I added Bleach ( Regular ) to it and let it sit for two weeks. After that I used my waste water from RO/DI to add water to the rock tub. Extra water overflow to the drain. Two months later I had rock with no algae, no smell. I drained it and started to add water from other tanks (water change) to it. Added few Live Rock to it and did not take long for life and bacteria to come back to the rock.

I had a friend who also put few rocks in the oven (very low) untill it dried completly (this if you don't want to wait for it to dry outside which might take long time). Like I said in very low temp . can find out for you what temp and I know he had pictures that he was going to give us to use in DIY page.

 

[Caragol]

Well, I decided to go the Magnesium route and thanks to some very cool reefers (who offered to lend me test kits too) I was able to locate a Salifert test kit locally for a good price (oddly enough it's in a copper test kit box, with a sticker from Salifert explaining that it's really a Mg test kit but they ran out of boxes).

nhlives, I think that post is the one TWallace started. He's the guy who posted before you. I went with Tech M because that's what he used and thats what others used with success. Epsom salts should work too, but for $18 a gallon and a 58g tank I just opted to go with Tech M. It should be more than enough to get me over the bump with plenty to spare if my calculations are right.

TWallace, I appreciate your experience and thanks for chiming in! You were right about the 1150ppm, but I actually use Seachem ReefSalt. I've added enough to hopefully up it about 50 to 75ppm, but I won't know until I retest in the morning.

I'll post results to this thread when I have them to let you know how it's going.

Thanks all!

 

[TWallace]

My Salifert Magnesium test kit is, I believe, in a box marked Silicates or something else. It, too, has the sticker indicating that it's really Magnesium, but they had a stock issue. Weird. I got mine from Marine Depot, and always assumed that Marine Depot was the one who put the sticker on it.

 

[Caragol]

Follow up: Mag levels reached 1600+ this weekend. Bryopsis is dying off quickly. There is very little left visible (used Kent Tech M to raise the levels). There are a few rocks left which what looks like very short hair algae, but I doubt it due to the 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates, I think they're just bryopsis stalks that still need to die.