Protocol for Second Dose of Fluconazole for Green Hair Algae

earwicker7

New member
My tank, which is two or so years old and SPS only, recently decided it wanted bryopsis and green hair algae to flourish. The only thing I was lazy on with this tank was vacuuming the rocks, and when I added more lighting, my guess is that a lot of the fish poo stuck in there became angry fertilizer.

Lesson learned, and I actually managed to figure out a pretty awesome in-wall rock vacuum system... MacGuyver would be proud.

In the meantime, I dosed fluconazole. It absolutely destroyed the bryopsis. The green hair algae... not so much. I have been pulling it out every day, so it's hard for me to tell if I'm causing there to be less, or if it is the floconazole, but it definitely didn't nuke it like it did the bryopsis.

I've done a lot of research in various forums, and there are people who said that it took much longer than the recommended two weeks for green hair algae... one person said it took almost two months. I'm on week three and planning to do one more dose.

What's the protocol for doing this? Normally, you're supposed to do a massive water change at the end of treatment to get rid of any nitrates or phosphates released from the death of the bryopsis... should I do the water change now and then do the second dose, or should I skip it in order to retain whatever floconazole is left in the system? Not sure what the half-life of that stuff is.

If anyone has a personal story of requiring multiple treatments, feel free to share how it went for you. My SPS are thriving, as are all of the tank's inhabitants, but it's kind of depressing to see patches of algae giving me the middle finger.
 
Tagging along.

Sort of.

I dosed flucanazol 4 weeks ago for mostly gha, just a little Bryozoa. Also a 2x dose of Vibrant. Two weeks in the bryopsis was gone and the gha was at least in retreat. At week 3 I did a ~40g wc (~140tv). I fired up my carbon reactor to clean things up a bit. Week 4 I did another wc and removed the carbon. Gave a 2nd dose of flucanazol and a 1x dose of Vibrant.

That was today.
 
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