End of game- Bryopsis (1) Vs. Higor (0!) - I will tear down my tank!!!

[RichardinMA]

I'm really surprised the Kent Tech M did not work either. I had patches of Bryopsis that my sea hare would not take care of so shot my Mag up to ~2500, maybe more. Within three days it was turning white and then fish and snails started eating it. I did not do a gradual increase like others have suggested and I had no issues whatsoever. In fact, I would use a large pipette and squirt the concentrated Tech M onto the Bryopsis and it would cascade down through my Acros and they would not have the slightest polyp reaction. It has been a couple months and things are still clean.

Bryopsis is not as nutrient limited as some other algaes in that reduction of nutrient does not make it disappear, it just greatly reduces the growth rate. If you have lots of Bryopsis, then you have lots of nutrient. It is not going to show up on a test because the Bryopsis is consuming it as fast as it is being produced, the same way Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter bacteria are consuming other waste resulting in "0" ammonia and nitrite readings. The only way you would see the true levels is if you could magically remove every speck of algae from the tank and then test in a couple days, after nothing has consumed it.

I run a fair amount of phosphate reducing media so only get a slight film of algae on my glass every few days. The result is that there is very little chance of the Bryopsis or other pest algaes from coming back. The trade off is that my macroalgae suffers due to the lack of nutrient. It is all a balancing act. Once Byropsis is there you need to physically remove it, via mechanical or chemical means, and then also remove the nutrient that is feeding it and allowing it to rebound. It is a major PIA and I wish you luck and hope you do not have to to a tear-down.

 

[wpeterson]

I don't know if it's any help for Bryopsis this bad, but I recently added a Tuxedo Urchin who's been mowing down the algae in my tank relentlessly.

He ate half of a red grape macro-algae plant in my refugium box the first night until I moved him down into the rockwork. He's been leaving paths of bright white rock cleaned down to the surface behind him as he moves around the tank.

Anyway, this is Higor's thread. My condolences on how bad things got. Best of luck with whatever you do with the tank.

 

[delta]

I hope you didn't tear it down but understand if you do some of the things in this hobby will push you to the brink.

I have been there to many times and I just keep plugging and everything seems to work out in the end.

 

[ReefKeeper1699]

I'm still so confused Hig how that even got that bad? Did you go. On vacation man or have been working a lot of hours? I am so sorry you missed it when it was in its beginning stage and just starting to form and you could have nipped it in the butt.

 

[higorc]

I'm really surprised the Kent Tech M did not work either. I had patches of Bryopsis that my sea hare would not take care of so shot my Mag up to ~2500, maybe more. Within three days it was turning white and then fish and snails started eating it. I did not do a gradual increase like others have suggested and I had no issues whatsoever. In fact, I would use a large pipette and squirt the concentrated Tech M onto the Bryopsis and it would cascade down through my Acros and they would not have the slightest polyp reaction. It has been a couple months and things are still clean.

Bryopsis is not as nutrient limited as some other algaes in that reduction of nutrient does not make it disappear, it just greatly reduces the growth rate. If you have lots of Bryopsis, then you have lots of nutrient. It is not going to show up on a test because the Bryopsis is consuming it as fast as it is being produced, the same way Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter bacteria are consuming other waste resulting in "0" ammonia and nitrite readings. The only way you would see the true levels is if you could magically remove every speck of algae from the tank and then test in a couple days, after nothing has consumed it.

I run a fair amount of phosphate reducing media so only get a slight film of algae on my glass every few days. The result is that there is very little chance of the Bryopsis or other pest algaes from coming back. The trade off is that my macroalgae suffers due to the lack of nutrient. It is all a balancing act. Once Byropsis is there you need to physically remove it, via mechanical or chemical means, and then also remove the nutrient that is feeding it and allowing it to rebound. It is a major PIA and I wish you luck and hope you do not have to to a tear-down.

I hope you didn't tear it down but understand if you do some of the things in this hobby will push you to the brink.

I have been there to many times and I just keep plugging and everything seems to work out in the end.

I'm still so confused Hig how that even got that bad? Did you go. On vacation man or have been working a lot of hours? I am so sorry you missed it when it was in its beginning stage and just starting to form and you could have nipped it in the butt.

I had never doubt before or knew as much as I know now about this pest as I do now. I tried to exhaust every natural method (Nuddi Branch, Sea Hare, Algae Blenny, Turbo snails, Trochus, u name it...) of getting rid of it, including 40G weekly water changes for 3-4 months before trying any chemical approach.

Archit knows, I was going through almost 2 200G boxes of Reef Crystals a month for almost 4 months!

Not sure what the Bryopsis is getting fueled by. My Nitrates were always low and Phosphates undetectable. It could be that they were sucking it out of the water as fast as it was coming in, but I never read about that anywhere. I have no other forms of nuisance algae anywhere in the tank, and the little bit of Chaeto I have in the sump barely grows...

I really wish I had puled the couple rocks it started on in the beginning. But I didn't... The way I look at it now is if I have to remove the rocks to kill the Bryopsis on them I might as well go all the way and take no chances with a full "Tank Reboot".

I don't know if it's any help for Bryopsis this bad, but I recently added a Tuxedo Urchin who's been mowing down the algae in my tank relentlessly.

He ate half of a red grape macro-algae plant in my refugium box the first night until I moved him down into the rockwork. He's been leaving paths of bright white rock cleaned down to the surface behind him as he moves around the tank.

Anyway, this is Higor's thread. My condolences on how bad things got. Best of luck with whatever you do with the tank.

Thanks for the heads up bro, but I have had a Tuxedo Urchin in my tank since I upgraded. He does a great job cleaning every other algae but won't touch the Bryopsis... Just like my Turbo, Trochus, Astreas, Hermits, Sea Hare, Lawnmower Blenny and Tangs.

I am pretty mush done buying anything else and hoping it will eat the Bryopsis. Everything I have heard "will" eat the Bryopsis has been a failure, it's pretty much this hope and patience that has gotten me where I am. I don't want to try anything that will strip and/or change my water chemistry either. Having my Mag at around 2300 for the past 1.5 months has taken a toll on all my SPS. I have always had a healthy system with out using or adding anything besides the essentials. I am really not fond of putting extra things in my tank...


If anyone has something you are will ling to put money it's gonna eat Bryopsis, let me know. I will pay what ever you want, but when it fails to do anything in my tank...well, u take it back and give me double your selling price for my time!


Higor

 

[nemodan]

Higor, I was looking in internet for Bryopsis pictures, but I do not know how accurate are those pictures. My aim is to know what you have to identify it in my tank, just in case. I am not free of suffering the same

Would you be so kind to post a close-up picture ?

Can you take out a small stone with the "devil" on it an take a picture with just a little of water?

Thanks

 

[higorc]

Higor, I was looking in internet for Bryopsis pictures, but I do not know how accurate are those pictures. My aim is to know what you have to identify it in my tank, just in case. I am not free of suffering the same

Would you be so kind to post a close-up picture ?

Can you take out a small stone with the "devil" on it an take a picture with just a little of water?

Thanks

I will take a picture later today. Can't really take any rocks out yet. I don't have any small LR in the tank. The smallest ones are almost the size of a football and full of corals and/or wedged onto another rock.

Yesterday I spent almost 1 hour pulling clumps of Bryopsis from all over the tank...barely made a dent ...

Having the Mag at 2300 for all this time has changed how the Bryopsis looks compared to before. It's not as green and doesn't grow as long as before. It seems like it browned out a bit and is growing more packed together almost like a "moss carpet". Before I could see the "Fern" looking leaves, now I can't anymore. It's just a "clump" of growing crap. Still hard to pull off the rocks though.

Higor

 

[RichardinMA]

Sounds to me like the Tech-M levels were not high enough then. I honestly cannot tell you what my levels were but they were very high. Never had a problem with any of my SPS at all. A few LPS/ zoas lost some color but never had a problem with anything else.

 

[higorc]

I started noticing my SPS reacting to the high mag already. My Acros lost 30% of their color, My Red Digi...well, not red anymore. Completely white. My Blue Enchida pretty much white with blue tips, my Blue/Purple Favia is pale blue and looks pissed pretty much from the start of raising the Mag. Some of my Zoas don't look as good as before either man... U are lucky nothing happened to ur corals, but I am not taking anymore chances messing with water chemistry.

I have a lot of real expensive stuff I would kick my self u know where if I crashed the tank and lost because I was being lazy trying to avoid breaking the tank. Some have more guts than others, I have reached my limit... It got this bad because I didn't even want to raise the Mag before trying every possibility of natural grazers... Now I even gotten my self conteplating using Peroxyde in the whole tank?!

It's gonna be a lot of work going through what I will be doing, but even worse if I crashed the tank getting the Mag Higher and/or dosing Peroxyde. Then I would really be PISSED!!! Losing thousands of $ in corals and not even being able to buy them again (I am sure it would be hard to get some of the pieces I have again!) when I could have just saved them all with a lot of work... I think I have waited enough, I rather quit and restart while I am ahead...


I really want to thank all you guys for all the suggestions. I wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking anything before I made my decision. The more replies I get in my threads (here and RC), the more I am convinced I have done everything I could and more sure then ever that breaking down the tank and saving my livestock is the right call...

 

[Greg Hiller]

>has no one else used lettuce nudi?? they work wonders!! <

Never worked for me. They get knocked off easily and blow around the tank. I tried them years ago on a small tank. They were clearly eating the stuff and were even laying eggs, and tiny ones would hatch out, but the little ones never seemed to mature much and as a whole they never made any headway.

Although it's been mentioned before, I have had some luck with minor control using a lawnmower blennie. I'm actually starting to get control over this in my main SPS tank at home. One of the strategies I used was just to get just about every surface that light hits covered with some form of coral. I snap pieces of Montiporas (plating/encrusting) and shove them anywhere I can. I also found an usual Pavona species that can grow in VERY low light and it encrusts on a lot of surfaces as well.

I think tearing down the tank is a bit extreme, but I suppose it depends what type of corals you are keeping. With SPS I don't think it's usually a problem as there is not a lot of dead skeleton exposed that the Bryopsis can get a foot hold on. If you are trying to grow Zoanthids, or something like that where you want a bare area of rock for them to grow over, I could see issues there.

 

[wdebenedettojr]

>has no one else used lettuce nudi?? they work wonders!! <

Never worked for me. They get knocked off easily and blow around the tank. I tried them years ago on a small tank. They were clearly eating the stuff and were even laying eggs, and tiny ones would hatch out, but the little ones never seemed to mature much and as a whole they never made any headway.

Although it's been mentioned before, I have had some luck with minor control using a lawnmower blennie. I'm actually starting to get control over this in my main SPS tank at home. One of the strategies I used was just to get just about every surface that light hits covered with some form of coral. I snap pieces of Montiporas (plating/encrusting) and shove them anywhere I can. I also found an usual Pavona species that can grow in VERY low light and it encrusts on a lot of surfaces as well.

I think tearing down the tank is a bit extreme, but I suppose it depends what type of corals you are keeping. With SPS I don't think it's usually a problem as there is not a lot of dead skeleton exposed that the Bryopsis can get a foot hold on. If you are trying to grow Zoanthids, or something like that where you want a bare area of rock for them to grow over, I could see issues there.

Greg the lawnmower blennies got tired of eating the bryopsis? I remember when I came by to pick up the blueberry acro (which is growing/encrusting nicely now) a few months ago they were dive bombing it lol.

 

[RichardinMA]

Wow, that is bizarre. I wonder what the difference is in our tanks to result in such a difference. Perhaps because my colors are somewhat pale to begin with, they did not react as badly. It is something that I am trying to improve but I think is just the result of my nutrient levels and PAR levels. Incidentally, I tried dosing the tank with H2O2 and had zero results with the Bryopsis (maybe that means it will work for you!) I did use to to treat some live rock that was pulled from a tank. It cleared the algae but was certainly not "live" anymore and needed to be cured- for weeks.

I started noticing my SPS reacting to the high mag already. My Acros lost 30% of their color, My Red Digi...well, not red anymore. Completely white. My Blue Enchida pretty much white with blue tips, my Blue/Purple Favia is pale blue and looks pissed pretty much from the start of raising the Mag. Some of my Zoas don't look as good as before either man... U are lucky nothing happened to ur corals, but I am not taking anymore chances messing with water chemistry.

I have a lot of real expensive stuff I would kick my self u know where if I crashed the tank and lost because I was being lazy trying to avoid breaking the tank. Some have more guts than others, I have reached my limit... It got this bad because I didn't even want to raise the Mag before trying every possibility of natural grazers... Now I even gotten my self conteplating using Peroxyde in the whole tank?!

 

[RMc]

IMO The most effective solution is spot treating with hydrogen peroxide (H202). Macro algae absolutely HATES it. Dipping in a 50/50 solution of H202 and tank water works the best - leave the rock submerged for 30 seconds, dip it in a bucket of pure tank water to rinse off excess and then back in the tank! The algae will turn white after a day and then melt right off. Only dip a few rocks per week and skim wet and after a while it will all be cleared up. I really think that chemical intervention is the only way to deal with this problem. Snails do not rid a tank of algae they just munch it down to the "root" - similar to sheep chewing up grass. The grass will grow back... Same goes for scrubbing it off.

You can treat the entire water column with H202, but certain coral will not like it. Xenia / Anthelia / some mushrooms / soft coral have particularly nasty reactions. You can easily treat your overflow & sump though. Just run a H202 Solution down it and into the sump let it sit for a while, then siphon it back out. If you grow any kind of macro intentionally, you'll definitely want to remove it as all macro alagae will be killed off by the peroxide.

Good Luck!

If you can't dip every rock

PS: I had a nasty bout with cotton candy algae - which was similarly impossible to get rid of. I was barely feeding and did weekly water changes but it still grew. I bought every snail, fish, crab that was supposed to eat it and they didn't even put a dent. Finally I just started dipping and bam... almost instant solution.

 

[higorc]

>has no one else used lettuce nudi?? they work wonders!! <

Never worked for me. They get knocked off easily and blow around the tank. I tried them years ago on a small tank. They were clearly eating the stuff and were even laying eggs, and tiny ones would hatch out, but the little ones never seemed to mature much and as a whole they never made any headway.

Although it's been mentioned before, I have had some luck with minor control using a lawnmower blennie. I'm actually starting to get control over this in my main SPS tank at home. One of the strategies I used was just to get just about every surface that light hits covered with some form of coral. I snap pieces of Montiporas (plating/encrusting) and shove them anywhere I can. I also found an usual Pavona species that can grow in VERY low light and it encrusts on a lot of surfaces as well.

I think tearing down the tank is a bit extreme, but I suppose it depends what type of corals you are keeping. With SPS I don't think it's usually a problem as there is not a lot of dead skeleton exposed that the Bryopsis can get a foot hold on. If you are trying to grow Zoanthids, or something like that where you want a bare area of rock for them to grow over, I could see issues there.

Same here with the Nuddis. They would fly everywhere and I had to fish then out of the sump at least 2-3 times a week. They were definitely eating the stuff, but not enough to make any head way. The way it was going, I would have needed about 50 - 80 of them to make it work...

I got the blenny because I heard urs was eating this stuff! But u right, I see little clumps of it flying around the tank and I know they are lending somewhere and making more patches! Im not sure if the blenny is eating it, but he does chomp down on patches and spits it out. Maybe he is still thinking if he should eat it or not.

I miss seeing my Coraline covered rocks, the Bryopsis has pretty much covered every rock that does not have corals and slowly choked out the Coraline and taken over. Now it's starting to do the same with my zoas.

Sent from my Galaxy S4

 

[higorc]

Come on guys, tell me if this is not bad!

 

[higorc]

 

[RiverRat]

Mr Cruz.......Tear down that tank

 

[higorc]

Doesn't look too bad from far away. But as someone that tries to do my best and knows how it can/should be, it’s an eye sore…









I never had any of my previous tank look like this... Like I mentioned before, I miss the coralline covered rocks. The Bryopsis has pretty much covered almost all of exposed rocks and is choking the coralline on the rocks and slowly taking over...

I just noticed today I lost a colony of Blue Enchinada. Do you think I would dose the tank with Peroxyde now?! No way!


This hobby is all about being patient, buy I can’t wait anymore. I don’t rush when it comes to my tank. But as stated before, waiting and exhausting all the natural possibilities and failing is what has gotten me here…

 

[RiverRat]

yup....still looks awesome!

 

[higorc]

Mr Cruz.......Tear down that tank

Dude, will do... My only highlight in all this is doing a few new things I have been thinking about and upgrading some of my equipment. Thanks for the encouragement...

Higor