How to Get Rid of the Dreaded Bryopsis?

[TheSaltwaterKid]

Alright, I've been battling this stuff for a couple of months now and I just can't seem to get rid of it . I am "weeding" my tank just about every other day and pulling clumps of this crap out...it's EVERYWHERE!!! I know some people claim the only way to eradicate this pest is to remove your rocks, scrub them and maybe even boil them but this is NOT an option for me, I have a Bonsai style aquascape constructed with acrylic rods, black zip ties and a lot of epoxy and after all the effort and hard work it took to construct this aquascape there's no way I'm tearing it apart...are there any other options? I already know that there is no known natural predator of this stuff (which is always my preffered method of dealing with pests), I have heard some people raise their magnesium to very high levels (1600 - 2000) and that kills it but wouldn't that also stress out my corals pretty bad? Would a chemical such as API AlgaeFix work? I have no idea how this started, I have fairly new bulb in my light (a couple of months old), I do weekly 20% water changes, I skim 24/7. My water params are great. I do feed feed heavily and could reduce my coral feedings to every other day but I've heard doing that alone won't make much of a difference now that the Bryopsis has a strong foothold. Any and all advice from people who have fought this "war" would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[seafansar]

I'm battling it right now with magnesium. I've just been adding mag slowly for I think a month now and am starting to see the stuff die back. I've been adding the mag slowly, cause I'm lazy and haven't been testing the mag levels. So far it seems to be working and hasn't been affecting my corals (acros, montis, zoas, palys, acans, and duncans) or fish.
Sea hare's will eat it too, but I think I lost mine to powerheads. If you don't have a strong flow in your tank, you could give those a try. I have heard that they can ink your tank and hurt the corals and fish, so keep that in mind. Maybe just find the smallest one you can find (they get pretty darn big, btw), so it won't do too much damage if it inks.
But all in all, I think mag is the way to go. Good luck! Bryopsis is awful!

 

[DrHank]

You say that your parameters are good. How about giving us the numbers. Also what are your readings for Nitrate and Phosphate? This is usually where the problem lies.

Increasing Mg can help eliminate it if your Nitrate and Phosphate are good but I wouldn't recommend that you add anything you can't test. Make sure that you have a Mg test kit before going in this direction.

 

[jski711]

Sea hares will not eat bryopsis!!!!!!! Lettuce nudibranchs will but they usually are eaten or sucked into powerheads.

 

[TheSaltwaterKid]

My params are as follows: Nitrate=0, Nitrite=0, Ammonia=0, Phosphate=0, calcium=430, alkalinity=11, pH=8.2. I do have a Magnesium test kit (Red Sea). I've also heard that some people have had success using Phosban in a reactor...anyone else heard of this or tried it themselves?

 

[seafansar]

Sea hares will not eat bryopsis!!!!!!! Lettuce nudibranchs will but they usually are eaten or sucked into powerheads.

Well the ones in my tank mowed down the bryopsis, just not enough to keep it in check. But I do think they got sucked into the powerhead or something. I had 3 now I only see 1 occasionally. They look like this.

 

[l3fty999]

You say that your parameters are good. How about giving us the numbers. Also what are your readings for Nitrate and Phosphate? This is usually where the problem lies.

Increasing Mg can help eliminate it if your Nitrate and Phosphate are good but I wouldn't recommend that you add anything you can't test. Make sure that you have a Mg test kit before going in this direction.

How about this... look up algae filter on this site. It's pretty simple and it will export lots of nutrients that bryopsis feed on. Many of your levels will test 0 because the bryopsis (or other nucance algae) are using it. Actually, here it is... http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...ver-replaces-skimmer-refugium-everything.html Please do check it out, you can do this all naturally without adding other gunk to your system. I'm doing it myself now, and I've gotten some results.

Take care,
Aaron

 

[TheSaltwaterKid]

I have seen that before Aaron but I just don't have the extra room in our small apartment to set up another 5 gal. bucket with hoses etc. (the wife would kill me...lol). I am afraid I'm stuck with either raising the Mg and/or using a phosphate reactor for now.

 

[lowfi]

have you tried other test kits? I have a feeling there is something up with a 0/0 nitrate and phosphate reading while still having such an issue with this algae. Maybe not though...?

 

[TheSaltwaterKid]

Several people have told me that the "0" reading for phosphate could be inaccurate as the algae is consuming the phosphate as fast as it's being produced and therefor giving me a false "0" reading. Some say our test kits aren't capable of reading low enough to measure the true phosphates that fuel algae like Bryopsis anyway and that's why they run reactors with Phosban (or similar GFO) even when their test kits are reading "0".

 

[jski711]

if that sea hare ate what you are calling bryopsis than it's probably not bryopsis. Take a picture of the algae and post it please. Sea hares will normally eat hair algae and some caluerpa but not bryopsis.

 

[TheSaltwaterKid]

I guess I am going the route of raising the magnesium up to between 1600 - 1800. On other message boards it's pretty well documented that it's just about the only sure way of getting rid of this plague so I ordered up a 64oz. bottle of Kent Tech M. I'll keep you updated (with pics if possible).

 

[Jeremy0322]

Why not hit it with everything and see if it goes away. Phosban reactors can be found somewhat cheap if you search for sale boards, and you are going to do the Mag anyways, so thats taken care of. How much are the sea hares? If you do all 3 one of them is bound to smack it down.

 

[TheSaltwaterKid]

Question, is it normal during this treatment for SPS to close their polyps? I've noticed that about 80 - 90% of my SPS have not opened their polyps since I started dosing the magnesium. I tested my water params and my Alkalinity was 11.5 dKH and my calcium was 380 ppm (a little low but not terrible...although I did adjust my dosing pump to stay on an extra 4 minutes per day to help raise the level) while my Mg was at 1200 when I started dosing the Tech M yesterday.

 

[TheSaltwaterKid]

The Tech M jug says to add 1ml per tank capacity and that will raise my Mg by 18.3ppm, if that is correct that means 29ml of Tech M will raise the Mg level by 18.3ppm so divide 100ppm (max level to raise by per day) by 18.3 and you get 5.4, round down to 5 and multiply by 29ml (which is the necessary amount to raise the Mg by 18.3ppm) and you get 145ml (which if you multiply 18.3 by 5 you get 91.5ppm which is how much 145ml of Tech M will raise my tanks Mg level by per day) which is the amount I have added per day (so far only twice as this is my second day). Am I figuring correctly?

 

[johnmaloney]

the best part about the calculations is they go off once in the tank. i think the start slowly and then raise it up once you feel comfortable with a dosing regime works best. high mag kills byropsis, no doubt about it.

 

[zigginit]

how much did the mag cost? im about to start doing this too. i hate byropsis.

+1 on sea hair eating byropsis. he ate the hair algae first but once he ran out of that he moved onto the byropsis but not as vigurously. then the fan killed him.

 

[DianaKay]

Reading through this older BRYOPSIS thread...
There sure aren't very many success stories about getting permanently rid of Bryopsis.
I'm raising my MG levels (again) skimming wet and just today put a BRS reactor in my sump. (Running BRS high cacacity GFO.)

I've tried several herbivores....NOTHING eats Bryopsis faster than it grows. Forget buying what the LFS says will eat it, because most likely: It will not!
Been there don't that already.

I have a sump that grows Chaetomorpha that should be helping battle nuscience algae but that's not working either.
I just hope I can keep my tank running. Take down & start over would not be much fun because I would have to re-home all my fish & throw away all my LR & Corals

 

[Wrangy]

Reading through this older BRYOPSIS thread...
There sure aren't very many success stories about getting permanently rid of Bryopsis.
I'm raising my MG levels (again) skimming wet and just today put a BRS reactor in my sump. (Running BRS high cacacity GFO.)

I've tried several herbivores....NOTHING eats Bryopsis faster than it grows. Forget buying what the LFS says will eat it, because most likely: It will not!
Been there don't that already.

I have a sump that grows Chaetomorpha that should be helping battle nuscience algae but that's not working either.
I just hope I can keep my tank running. Take down & start over would not be much fun because I would have to re-home all my fish & throw away all my LR & Corals

Nope, it's one of the worst to deal with. By far. Are you using Kent Tech M to bring the Mag levels up because I haven't heard of much success with normal stuff and high levels, it's to do with one of the other elements in the Tech M that kills the bryopsis.

Bryopsis, like caulerpa, has some nasty tasty stuff in it so herbivores rather dislike the taste of it, don't give up though. It's not worth restarting your wonderful tank Di!! One trick that helps immensely in the battle is boiling RO! It flat out kills any and all algae but it's a little more work than the shortcuts and chemicals. I go through and kill all my algae spots with boiling RO during every water change and slowly is it all dying back Bryopsis included (touch wood!!). It's a harder and longer process but it definitely works and I'm slowly getting there! You should give it a go and report back! I just use a 20ml syringe (get bigger if you can!) with a piece of airline attached tot he end and I just suck up some boiling RO and squirt it onto wherever has algae and the next day or two it's dead as a door nail let me know what you think!

 

[Pat24601]

I haven't had to deal with bryopsis yet. Is there a good way to avoid it?