DopeCantWin
Active member
Bryopsis needs a combination of very low nutrients and Kent marine magnesium. Search this reef central, there are a lot of threads about it.
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Bryopsis needs a combination of very low nutrients and Kent marine magnesium. Search this reef central, there are a lot of threads about it.
I've heard a couple of positive reports where a really efficient algae scrubber (like the L2R4 turbo) would outcompete bryopsis...
However even the guy who manufactures them doubts a scrubber can do so.
Peroxide dosing i'm a little uneasy with :
1) Removing rock and applying directly - the SPS are very closely spaced on the rock, which itself is heavy and cumbersome to remove, so i'm concerned i'll get peroxide on the corals themselves and damage / kill them.
2) Dosing peroxide directly to the water column - surely this is outright dangerous for the inhabitants of the tank? I can see it causing a full tank wipeout....
I have 0 nitrates and 0.01 phosphates (though the salifert phosphate kit is somewhat questionable).
Kent TECH M has changed it's ingredients and no longer contains the impurity that worked against bryopsis.....
Low nutrients seems to be absolutely the key with this, and it seems i'll have to accept that the SPS are going to be pale until the bryopsis is killed off (if it ever is).
My options as I see them
1) Hammer into tank
2) Gut tank, remove all the rock and replace with good quality branching rock (which I was gong to use in the first place)
3) Replace the crappy chinese reactor with an Avast spy glass and keep right on top of GFO use.
4) Replace the cheato refugium with an L2R4 algae scrubber.....
These are the only options I have right now.
DopeCantWin
Active member
Now there are some species of bryopsis that don't require Kent, you may be able to just raise the mg with anything. I also might have very old bottles of Kent lying around, but you're very far away.
If those are your list of options, then that's unfortunate. I think you have the wrong impression about peroxide dosing. If you really are interested, I would recommend paging through Soulpatch's nano build thread, and/or PMing him with follow up questions. He's become a local master of bryopsis removal through peroxide dosing, and I believe he was successful without any/much mortality.
Also, I don't think TechM had impurities, as far as I understood it, people used TechM because of the convenience, but any magnesium product that you could raise your levels to >2000ppm were fine to use whatever brand it was. I don't think it was ever considered that it was an impurity, as many people used many different magnesium products. Let me know if you've seen threads recently where people found out that it wasn't just any magnesium product, and that TechM specifically had a special ingredient, but I have never heard that.
Also, I don't think TechM had impurities, as far as I understood it, people used TechM because of the convenience, but any magnesium product that you could raise your levels to >2000ppm were fine to use whatever brand it was. I don't think it was ever considered that it was an impurity, as many people used many different magnesium products. Let me know if you've seen threads recently where people found out that it wasn't just any magnesium product, and that TechM specifically had a special ingredient, but I have never heard that.
homer1475
New member
Ive been reading up on using an elevated MAG level to kill bryopsis, it is specifically Kent Tech M that has been named in several threads. While no one knows how or why only this product works, the general consensus is some laden heavy metal they use. Tech M isn't pure magnesium like some other supplements, its more of a watered down version with some extras, and to my knowledge, Kent hasn't changed the formula. Just read a very recent thread where someone at some aquarium show(forget the show now) where Kent Marine attended, and they specifically asked if they changed Tech M because some people have reported it not working on bryopsis recently. The answer from them directly is they haven't changed the formula in decades.
I'm going to try the Tech M approach first, if that doesn't work then it will most definitely be peroxide dosing.
I'm going to try the Tech M approach first, if that doesn't work then it will most definitely be peroxide dosing.
BubbleMyTip
New member
They haven't changed the formula; the formula is just inconsistent re the impurity depending on where they have sourced the product. I've read extensively many threads on tech m and it is inconsistent for this reason. This explains why some people have to raise their Mg to 2200 while others only 1750-1800ppm. (That and different base levels of the impurity and mg in different tanks to begin with). The sourcing for their product also explains why some other brand of mg supplement occasionally work on bryopsis too...
This was the ingredients list on old bottles of tech m: I understand it hasn't changed, it's just not listed anymore-
"Contents: deionized water containing the following elements (as ions): magnesium, chlorine, sulfur, calcium, potassium, bromine, strontium, boron, fluorine, lithium, rubidium, iodine, iron, molybdenum, zinc, nickel, copper, manganese, vanadium, cesium, cobalt, tungsten, selenium, and chromium."
Useful threads: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2161070
Also when I dosed tech m, my skimmer could not foam for two days. The bryopsis did die back, went white but not completely. I took it to 1900ppm mg and I didn't want to go any higher on the mg as some of my snails slowed right down and then died (suggests an impurity such as copper) and I didn't want to kill my anemones or ultra maxima. Ended up doing a water change cos I freaked about stuff dying. Now I just keep bryopsis at bay with tweezers and low nutrients through prodibio, nopox and dosing nitrates to make the system more phosphate limited (bacteria need more nitrate than phosphate but will exhaust the nitrate and leave enough phosphate behind - why Biopellets cause cyano: it can fix nitrogen from other sources and thus outcompete other bacterial strains. Adding nitrate reduces that advantage. )
It's fine and I actually quite like it in small clumps. Pods right amongst it... Easy enough to mow now and then. Will hopefully disappear once phosphate leaching from my rock becomes minimal.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
This was the ingredients list on old bottles of tech m: I understand it hasn't changed, it's just not listed anymore-
"Contents: deionized water containing the following elements (as ions): magnesium, chlorine, sulfur, calcium, potassium, bromine, strontium, boron, fluorine, lithium, rubidium, iodine, iron, molybdenum, zinc, nickel, copper, manganese, vanadium, cesium, cobalt, tungsten, selenium, and chromium."
Useful threads: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2161070
Also when I dosed tech m, my skimmer could not foam for two days. The bryopsis did die back, went white but not completely. I took it to 1900ppm mg and I didn't want to go any higher on the mg as some of my snails slowed right down and then died (suggests an impurity such as copper) and I didn't want to kill my anemones or ultra maxima. Ended up doing a water change cos I freaked about stuff dying. Now I just keep bryopsis at bay with tweezers and low nutrients through prodibio, nopox and dosing nitrates to make the system more phosphate limited (bacteria need more nitrate than phosphate but will exhaust the nitrate and leave enough phosphate behind - why Biopellets cause cyano: it can fix nitrogen from other sources and thus outcompete other bacterial strains. Adding nitrate reduces that advantage. )
It's fine and I actually quite like it in small clumps. Pods right amongst it... Easy enough to mow now and then. Will hopefully disappear once phosphate leaching from my rock becomes minimal.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hmmm. The company says they haven't changed the formulation, this off-label use of it sometimes works for some tanks and sometimes doesn't work for other tanks, and people think it's a question of sourcing of the techM....
If it were me (which fortunately it's not), I'd be more likely to chalk it up to that not all strains of bryopsis are impacted by magnesium or not all magnesium test kits are accurate. Maybe its the sourcing for the TechM end product, but you'd think Kent would have their inputs pretty rigorously tested for consistency before selling it to thousands of hobbyists... Maybe not, but this is one of those times in the hobby that I have to raise my eyebrow....
If it were me (which fortunately it's not), I'd be more likely to chalk it up to that not all strains of bryopsis are impacted by magnesium or not all magnesium test kits are accurate. Maybe its the sourcing for the TechM end product, but you'd think Kent would have their inputs pretty rigorously tested for consistency before selling it to thousands of hobbyists... Maybe not, but this is one of those times in the hobby that I have to raise my eyebrow....
Food for thought and i'll get around to a detailed response but getting suggestions this evening 
For now i've discovered another potential pest that's seemingly come out of nowhere......
I noticed a few small black almost snail shell like growths on the base of the tank, average size 3 - 4 mm across and they have what looks like a little 'pipe' sticking out the top (unsure of they all do as there are lots in the tank) , upon removing one they are very hard to crack and pretty non descript...... however i've now found larger masses on the rocks and coral bases - my first thought before removing was chicken liver sponge, bit now i'm befuddled....
20160521_224755 by DEAF N1NJA, on Flickr
20160521_224819 by DEAF N1NJA, on Flickr
For now i've discovered another potential pest that's seemingly come out of nowhere......
I noticed a few small black almost snail shell like growths on the base of the tank, average size 3 - 4 mm across and they have what looks like a little 'pipe' sticking out the top (unsure of they all do as there are lots in the tank) , upon removing one they are very hard to crack and pretty non descript...... however i've now found larger masses on the rocks and coral bases - my first thought before removing was chicken liver sponge, bit now i'm befuddled....
20160521_224755 by DEAF N1NJA, on Flickr20160521_224819 by DEAF N1NJA, on FlickrHard to tell from the pictures, but they might be vermetid snails. Not especially nice residents for a tank. Exceptionally cool feeding behavior, but still a pest.
Food for thought and i'll get around to a detailed response but getting suggestions this evening
For now i've discovered another potential pest that's seemingly come out of nowhere......
I noticed a few small black almost snail shell like growths on the base of the tank, average size 3 - 4 mm across and they have what looks like a little 'pipe' sticking out the top (unsure of they all do as there are lots in the tank) , upon removing one they are very hard to crack and pretty non descript...... however i've now found larger masses on the rocks and coral bases - my first thought before removing was chicken liver sponge, bit now i'm befuddled....
I've had them at various stages in my tank. They actually tend to come and go. Since I'm only skimming and doing water changes, no physical media or other stuff to capture floating particles in, I've found quite a bit of feather dusters, as well as some vermitid snails, though the population of vermitid has been pretty low the last 6 months or so.
They shouldn't be a problem, they don't really bother my corals much either.
They shouldn't be a problem, they don't really bother my corals much either.
Cheers mate - we'll see, maybe a break will help!
In the meantime I intend on going back to my first passion - poison dart frogs
