Bobs Battle Begins, the dreaded byprosis

BEELZEBOB

Well-Known Member
i had a minor outbreak in my teenyweeny tank.

i bought a lettuce nudi. he did a great job. it was almost non existant.

then, my freggin acans munched the lil guy who dissolved into my tank.

even w/ an immediate WC and 48hrs running carbon, BYPROSIS TOOK OVER MY TANK!!!!!

this is sooooooo embarrasing. no longer can i be stuck up and proud that my first ever reeftank has been running fine, w/ no issues or problems...

this sux. so ive been dooing research on the bumpin magneisium technique and this is what ive got.


okay, so apparently when dosing mag, the best supplement is Kent Marine Tech M

apparently some people whom were treating byprosis by rasing mag with any other type of mag supplement didnt have the same, if any, success that those who used Tech M did.

Randy Holmes Farley brough up that there seems to be a extra chemical (X) in tech M that may not be present in any other mag supplement that can be attributed to the death of byprosis.

Farley says this technique scetches him out, because if what kills the byprosis is REALLY CHEMICAL X, we have no idea what the **** it is, there for, no way to test and measure X.

now one side thread on RC is where Randy brought this up, and honestly its the only place that ive seen that only tech m works with this technique.

so i grabbed a bottle of tech m ($14.99 and a mag test kit $21.99) yesterday

ive read that both high dosing, and turning off the flow for a minute and shootin the mag supplement at the base of the byprosis works.

the ranges ive heard discussed have been anywhere from 1500-2200ppm. and when its gone maintaining at least 1300ppm.

im going to just dose to raise to about 1500-1800ppm through this week.

then if need be i will target dose directly.



right now my mag is about 1280-1320ppm

so adding 18 ml of Kent Marine Tech M (1ml per gallon) sopposedly (by the bottle's instruction) will boost my Mag by 18.sumthin ppm.

soooooo on that note, trying to not raise my mag more than 100ppm, per day i plan on adding 90 ml of kent mag per dose, which should bump me 90ppm per day.

i added 18ml at lunch.

im going to do a 2 gallon WC tonight, and add another 70-80 ml of Tech M post WC.

instead of dosing daily, do y'all think i should dose every other day?

90ml of anything kinda freaks me out... maybe ill do 45ml every day........

this is sooo embarrasing, but, here it is.
byprosis.jpg
 
Never heard of a acan being that aggressive? And I have 12 colonies, wow. But I don't have any nudis either...

First using a chemical to get rid of this is just masking the root of the problem. Your algae is obviously feeding off of something? I'd manuelly remove as much as you can physically. Check your RO/DI with a TDS making sure its good. Change all filtration padding and do water changes weekly 10-20%. If your going to raise mag use DIY epsom salt you'll save alot of money. I don't know if you have a hang on refugium with live aglae but if you do run that 24/7 and cut down the lights in your main display.

Again, using chemicals to get rid of problems such as this just masks the problem. Sooner or later it will come back if nothing has changed. I can attest to this due to a buddy and I had a cyano out break, a month a part. He used red slime and it was gone in a week. I manuelly change all my filtration, new carbon, 25% water changes weekly, increase flow to the area where it was building up, physcialy removed any items that I could. It took three weeks for me with contless testing and finally it was gone. A month later my buddies cyano came back and began growing on his SPS.
 

BEELZEBOB

Well-Known Member
yea thats why im doin WC as well.

i dont think elliminating the source will make it go away, just head its development.

so i hope by utilizing both methods, my issue will be resolved
 

ab420

New Member
You acan ate your nudi? Did you get to see it? Really sorry about your tank and the bryopsis, but that have been pretty neat to see...
 

BEELZEBOB

Well-Known Member
it was a lil intense.

cool, but intense.

my acans usually dont get $12.99 meals.

and in hind site, trying to remove the half eaten nudi was a bad idea, i shoulda let the acans finish.

so i started dosing last night. i did a 2 gal WC, and dosed the Tech M.

plan to do the same again tonight.
 

rmlevasseur

Active Member
I'm not familiar with magnesium resulting in less algae issues, that's interesting. Typically I buy magnesium sulfate at Walgreens. It's called their Apothecary Epsom Salt. I usually dump a whole box into a bucket of r/o and then mix the rest of my salt normally. It takes a ton of magnesium sulfate to raise mag levels even a little.

My 180 is coming up on a year and a few weeks ago I started realizing that I seem to have had some die-off in my snail population, and as a result I started noticing a very small amount of growth on the rocks closest to the lights. I pulled a few hermits, which had been banished to the sump, and put them back into the 180, and in just a few days all the growth was gone.

As a result I'm really torn on the snail-hermit issue. I have never had issues with hermits harming my corals or livestock, although they will kill the snails. However I think they are much better at eliminating alage. I've decided to keep a small amount in the 180 and just plan on replacing a few snails every year or so.
 

BEELZEBOB

Well-Known Member
hermits and snail just, um have a high turnover in my tank...

so by using tech m, and doing consistant WC's i think ill be able to get a hold of the damn stuff.

a week ago i almost sold it all.

but i wouldn do that to Bane. hes my lil baby
 

lcstorc

Well-Known Member
Generally speaking there are many ways to raise Mag but from what Bob has read from Randy there is an extra ingredient in the TechM that is taking care of the Byropsis so adding regular Mag is not going to do the trick. It seems nobody including Randy knows/understands what the ingredient is, just that it seems to work.
 

BEELZEBOB

Well-Known Member
Randy was sayin Kent could make a seroius buck if they could isolate and sell said compound.

kids? science projects?
 

rmlevasseur

Active Member
Bob - do you have a tds meter to measure your ro? My well water destroys my resin much quicker than I had expected, and leeches back into the ro water if I'm not careful. Might want to check that out.
 

BEELZEBOB

Well-Known Member
well, ive just been buyin RO/DI cause my landlord wouldnt let me set one up.....

BUT, i havent like pulled any byprosis out, so i could see what happens through the process.

ive been at it 3 days, MG is at 1300ppm +, and the algae is starting to turn paleish
 

Luukosian

Well-Known Member
If they wont let you set up ro/di permanently just hook it up with a screw on adapter right on the sink faucet...thats what I do and put the waste line into the bath drain. When im done I just unscrew it and put the unit in the closet.
 

BEELZEBOB

Well-Known Member
I DO NOT HAVE THE PRESSURE REQUIRED TO MAKE AN RO/DI WORK.

I CAN HOOK UP AN RO/DI NO PROB. BUT IT WONT WORK W/O AND ADAPTER.

and the adapter is where we have a problem
 

ReefGuy69

Member
I have a problem with Byprosis when i first set up my tank. bout a few months in. I bought a little fishies phosban reactor and have been running phosban since. The brypsis went right away and hasnt come back since. I am batteling other forms of algae but havent seen byprosis since. You may want to look into that. My Alk, and Mag and PH have been steady as well. It was a very easy cheap fix.
 

rmlevasseur

Active Member
Frankly I'd buy a pressure pump (aquatec) and tap into the line. Screw the landlord. You have a right to drink purified water as far as I'm concerned.
 
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