I've had it with Bryposis

[fatman]

So it is not a case of worry about the algae over running the tank. I had a much worse picture in my minds eye. Have you considered, being the amount of your algae is not extreme, just cutting back to only actinic lighting for a week or so. Most nuisance algaes lighting needs are not supported by just actinic lighting yet the actinic will provide most of the soft corals and coraline algae lighting needs and a fair amount of the lighting needs of stoney corals. Supplemental feeding of the stoney corals would be best but the lack of the algae lighting needs being met for a fair amount of time might prevent the need for drastic treatment of the rocks. Blacking out the display tank walls during this time might seem drastic but would eliminate the full spectrum lighting from the room lights as well.

 

[BigAl07]

......Most nuisance algaes lighting needs are not supported by just actinic lighting...

Wow! I didn't know that! See we learn something every day!!

 

[mps9506]

If you drastically increase the nutrient levels in a container with a lid on it, or even off of, it the dissolved oxygen levels is going to be pretty close to zero for possibly up too a week or more as the bacteria will utilize every bit of the oxygen available for their own multiplication while processing those nutrients that come from the dieing algae, they do not care about the oxygen needs of other organisms and circulation alone will in no way be a sufficient method of supplying adequate oxygen for both the bacteria and any other oxygen needing organisms. Basically you will end up with nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria and little else. Just removing the growing algae makes more sense as other organisms have a greater chance of remaining alive but the algea and the nutrients they contain will be removed, plus they process will be done over a matter of a few days not weeks. Sponges, sea squirts, tunicates, tubeworms, etc will typically regrow from rock that has been physically scrubbed, but not when they have died from lack of oxygen. Possibly scrubbing the rocks, then "cooking them" would make more sense as most nutrients would be removed rather than dieing in the water and feeding the bacteria and therefore depleting the oxygen. Unless we are to assume that all the plants nutrients will instantly turn to nitrates and would therefore only be dealt with by denitrifying bacteria which have no oxygen demand. However, that does not seem likely. IMO

While what you have typed out makes sense, the rock cooking process does not work that way. You are not creating an anoxic environment here. You are simply removing light. It is not a sealed container, just a tub with a sheet of plastic over it or in the garage or basement where light is not reaching the rock. Powerheads, heater and protein skimmers can be used and are encouraged during the rock cooking process. During the same period you are doing large weekly or more often water changes removing all the detritus from the bottom of the tubs, swishing out the rocks in SW to remove all the crap the bacteria starts pumping out of the rocks.
There is nothing anoxic about the environment you use during rock cooking. And you live rock will not be dead as a result of the cooking process.

 

[fatman]

While what you have typed out makes sense, the rock cooking process does not work that way. You are not creating an anoxic environment here. You are simply removing light. It is not a sealed container, just a tub with a sheet of plastic over it or in the garage or basement where light is not reaching the rock. Powerheads, heater and protein skimmers can be used and are encouraged during the rock cooking process. During the same period you are doing large weekly or more often water changes removing all the detritus from the bottom of the tubs, swishing out the rocks in SW to remove all the crap the bacteria starts pumping out of the rocks.
There is nothing anoxic about the environment you use during rock cooking. And you live rock will not be dead as a result of the cooking process.

Anoxic conditions will occur if the rate of oxidation of organic matter by bacteria is greater than the supply of oxygen. It happens all the time, that is why permits have to be obtained to discharge waste or even storm waters into waterways and the ocean.

What you are referring to is just basically what some would just refer to as curing the rock in an absence of light. I could see that except for the huge rapid influx of nutrients akin to what you would have trying to cycle a tank with live rock covered with dieing life forms caused by a long shipment period or dry shipment. Understandable methodology, but I would also be prepared to be taking ammonia reading at least twice a day and doing whatever water changes were needed to keep the ammonia levels at or below 1.0 ppm at the most. And I would still question the dissolved oxygen levels of the small holding tubs holding the rocks.
I however do not follow the bacteria pumping out part. Consuming or changing of one water soluable substance to another, but crap pumped out? Lack of light will cause death of algae, then putrification of solid organics, then conversion to nitrates and maybe some denitrification. Other than that, what ever is in the water in the way of particulates that might be removed by the skimmer I can understand, or dissolved organics, but I can not see anything being pumped out of the rocks accept that within the rocks pores. If your assuming that nutrients are absorbed by the calcium carbonate, I do not think so. Adsorption as, as in nutrients filling the pore spaces I can understand, but nutrients otherwise bound within the rocks will not necessarily leach out just due to light deprivation. The rock would have to dissolve and therefore release the nutrients. In essence as long as the rock is a solid it will contain tied up nutrients.:bigbounce

I do not know how many people on this site like straight academic research paper summaries etc., but here is one on this particular algae that relates to their response/adaptability to differing light wave lengths. It seems to imply to drop lighting down to the actinic blue range as they can utilize all normal lighting above that range. IE dropping down into the 420-460 nm range (actinic) is adequate lighting adjustment to kill it rather than total light deprivation that will not be appreciated by corals.
http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/56/416/1517

 

[mps9506]

Anoxic conditions will occur if the rate of oxidation of organic matter by bacteria is greater than the supply of oxygen. It happens all the time, that is why permits have to be obtained to discharge waste or even storm waters into waterways and the ocean.

If you have that much organic matter dying off in the water then there are bigger problems than just bryopsis or hair algae

I could see that except for the huge rapid influx of nutrients akin to what you would have trying to cycle a tank with live rock covered with dieing life forms caused by a long shipment period or dry shipment.

I kinda disagree on that. New live rock that's been shipped out of water or under wet newspaper for 4 days with rotting sponges macro or microalgae, corals etc is going to have way more die off than some hair algae on a peice of live rock pulled from your tank. Any photosynthetic critters on your rock do obviously need to be pulled.

And I would still question the dissolved oxygen levels of the small holding tubs holding the rocks.

They shouldn't be that small. Should be large enough to hold the rock, plenty of fresh SW. We used a 6x6x3 rub to cook ~200lbs of rock, and I used a 40 gallon tub to cure ~40 lbs of rock for my reef. Held about the same about of water as the display tanks the rock went into. With powerheads and water changes O2 was never an issue.

I however do not follow the bacteria pumping out part. Consuming or changing of one water soluable substance to another, but crap pumped out? Lack of light will cause death of algae, then putrification of solid organics, then conversion to nitrates and maybe some denitrification. Other than that, what ever is in the water in the way of particulates that might be removed by the skimmer I can understand, or dissolved organics, but I can not see anything being pumped out of the rocks accept that within the rocks pores. If your assuming that nutrients are absorbed by the calcium carbonate, I do not think so. Adsorption as, as in nutrients filling the pore spaces I can understand, but nutrients otherwise bound within the rocks will not necessarily leach out just due to light deprivation. The rock would have to dissolve and therefore release the nutrients. In essence as long as the rock is a solid it will contain tied up nutrients.

I'm not the most qualified to answer this part. However from my understanding and from my experience cooking live rock this is what happens. As the algae dies from lack of light locked up nutrients will be released. Most of the time you are removing the dieing algae during the swishing and water change process anyways, but still nutrients are released, those that are water soluble are removed during the 100% water changes.
Now there is no means of phosphate export because there is no algae growth. From there bacteria is able to dominate the breakdown of organics and nutrients on and within the live rock. What ends up is a sludge of detritus being expelled from the live rock. This needs to be physically removed. We are simply giving bacteria the upper hand by not having it compete with algae for nutrients.
Of course this accomplishes nothing if the rock is reintroduced to a tank loaded with nutrients and phosphates, and it does kill off the photosynthetic critters/plants, which some people don't like at all. It's not the only way of getting rid of bryopsis by any means, but I've had much success with it in getting rid of hair algae and caluerpa in rock that came from high nutrient environments so they were suitable for my sps tanks.

 

[fatman]

Being an engineer, chiefly active in the field of environmentl engineering, I tend to be pretty pessimitic when it comes down to possibly/likely occuring bad consequences when given procedures/information leaves large holes in a prospective plan. Things like: small or large amounts of organic matter, larger or small holding containers, covered or uncovered containers, well aerated or not well aerated, are hugely important when trying to pre evaluate a prospective plan.
Ejected detritus. I still can not see how any thing that was had not actually been taken up by the organics as part of their physical structure, that you were destroying, can be ejected from anything or anywhere. Unless they were particulates that had been overgrown by organics and therefore encapsulated and not precipitates that actually become a chemical and physical part of the rock. Any materials that had been made a part of the rock by the normal process of nutrient sequestration by the action of precipitation of calcium carbonates would remain a part of the rock.
Regardless of all that I think I would definitely try to rid the problem with actinic blue lighting control first. It works very well with cyano bacteria and by the looks of the studies of the light waves used by Bryposis it would appear that it would work well with it also.

 

[SeahorseBT]

I have lecctuce nudis and they love the stuff, I am about 30-45 min away from you, they bred for me, so if you want some babies (about 1/8 of an inch) they are $15 each, but if you get more i can give you a good deal. They grow pretty fast with the bryopsis, but they don't really grow that fast on HA. Let me know.

 

[SeahorseBT]

I can also trade for frags.

 

[SeahorseBT]

you dont have any wrasses do you? B/c they eat them.

 

[Scouter Steve]

Yep I have a wrasse. Gone through like 10 slugs already! They don't like the flow in most of my tank. They do eat some but not in the high flow areas.

 

[SeahorseBT]

good luck getting rid of it, do you have any tangs? They should eat it right?

 

[Scouter Steve]

Tangs and foxfaces do not seem to like this algae. Right now I have placed about a third in a tub in the basement. We will see what happens. I might turn the MH off for a few days to see if that does anything. I am about ready to do anything including dancing naked in the moonlight to get this ugly crap out of my tank!

 

[mps9506]

Being an engineer, chiefly active in the field of environmentl engineering, I tend to be pretty pessimitic when it comes down to possibly/likely occuring bad consequences when given procedures/information leaves large holes in a prospective plan. Things like: small or large amounts of organic matter, larger or small holding containers, covered or uncovered containers, well aerated or not well aerated, are hugely important when trying to pre evaluate a prospective plan.

It's a pretty simple plan. covered container so no light gets in, the container has to be large enough to hold your water and rock, probably around the same size as a display tank would be that would hold the equivalent amount of rock. Water movement from powerheads, heater if needed to keep the temperature at whatever you like to keep your tank temperature at, skimmer is not needed, lots of SW and buckets. 100% water changes to remove the built up detritus at the bottom of the tubs, and SW in buckets to swish off the rocks when you do the water changes.
Once the detritus stops releasing form the rocks it's done. Time this takes will depend on how bad the rocks are.
But it's been pretty well documented on TRT, and RC that this does work very well for getting rid of algae, and is a great way to start out low nutrient tanks. It's not the only way, but it's an option.

Another explored option is raising your Mg levels in the tank. I don't know much about this personally, again I've never had to battle bryopsis personally, but it appears anecdotaly this works as well. I can see if I can dig up some old threads on that as well.

 

[mps9506]

Here is a better explanation:

I have never heard it called boiling LR before. It used to be called cooking the LR but I don't even know where that name came from as you are keeping the rock at the same temperature as it was in your tank.

The bacteria that live in LR are constantly cleaning it out. If you were to take a rock out of your tank, drop it in a bucket with fresh saltwater, a heater, and a powerhead, you would be amazed at how much junk spits out of it. It will land on the bottom of the bucket and sit on the surface of the LR. You could siphon the detritus out and then wait another two days and there would be more there. This is all done by bacterial turgor (pressure) and it's a good thing otherwise our rocks would be always colored green with algae and eventually, the porespace would get filled in with waste and the rock would slowly become a less effective biofilter because there would be less habitat for the bacteria to live in.

This is why if someone wants to have a sandbed, I tell them to fully cure their LR, wait until the detritus and bacterial floc stops coming out of the rock prior to putting the sand in. Why age the sandbed prematurely? This is also why having good flow in your tank is important and why you should turkey baste your LR often. To get the detritus that is coming out of the rock into the water column into suspension for your skimmer or mechanical filtration to remove. Failure to do this will result in algae growth on the surface because this waste is nutrient laden.

In spite of the self-cleaning nature of our LR, it isn't efficient enough to completely clean itself out in our nutrient-laden closed systems. Eventually, it falls behind. Cooking the LR helps the bacteria get caught up and should be looked at like periodically overhauling an engine. It's a free way of returning the rock to a like-new condition. Worms don't clean out LR, they merely eat larger pieces of detritus and algae and break them down into smaller pieces.

Regarding the Phosphates, I'm going to be lazy and copy a PM I sent to a friend. They had no fish in the tank, no sandbed, was using RO/DI water and salt that tested zero for P but was having massive Phosphate readings even with frequent water changes. This tank was in Michael Paletta's Ultimate Marine Aquariums book. They wanted to know where the Phosphates were coming from and the LFS wanted my friend to throw out all of that LR and tried to prove that the rock was bad by breaking a piece of it in half. Unfortunately for the LFS owner, the event didn't prove what they hoped would happen. Here's my PM.....I hope it makes sense. Then I'll discuss why Phosphates are such a pain.

Tsiteerin::
Breaking the rock will tell you if sulphur-producing bacteria in the anaerobic areas of the rock had produced sulphides. You would DEFINATELY smell that. However, the Phosphates are odorless so you can't detect them like this.

In a nutshell, Phosphates are in every living thing. This includes bacteria as well. These bacteria are coating every surface in your aquarium, the outside and inside of your LR, inside your sandbed, and at one time the mud filter as well. Some bacteria are also motile and run around in the water column. In other words, different types of bacteria live in different areas of your tank and their "home" is usually dependent on Oxygen level. Phosphate is also in dead things....namely coral waste, fish waste, etc. but not for long before another bacterium grabs it.

We have absolutely no control over the bacteria so we have to control two things....the inputs of Phosphate and the outputs of Phosphate. On the input side, there are a lot of things we can do...use RO/DI water only, use low Phosphate salts, suck the polyphosphates out of the seafood we use in our blender mush with RO/DI water (RO/DI water is the universal solvent), avoid the use of prepared foods, soaking carbon in RO/DI water until it no longer leaches Phosphates before use (trees were once alive so GAC has P), etc. and so on. This list could go on and on so I'll stop here. On the output side, we need to get rid of detritus on a regular basis, skim, turkey basting our rock, clean our mechanical filtration before the detritus can break down, macroalgae export, etc.

Our hobbiest test kits (unlike some scientific ones) will always read zero until one thing happens.....the population of all of the living things has all of the Phosphate it needs and there is no where else for it to go but the water column. (It's not living in anything so it is inorganic).

These definitions are not really correct but they help me with these issues.

Inorganic Phosphates....means not livin' in the tissues of a critter.
Organic Phosphate....means livin' in the tissues of a critter.
Critter...means bacteria, algae, fish, invertebrates, etc.

Everytime a critter dies, the once bound Phosphate gets released into the water column but not for long. Some other critter will grab it right away or it will be adsorbed onto another molecule...namely calcium or magnesium. Every time a critter puts waste into the water column, bacteria will break it down and grab what they need out of it....which is primarily Nitrogenous compounds or Phosphates. (That's why we have to be faster than the bacteria in detritus removal).

Anytime you can measure Phosphates with a hobbiest test kit, it means everything is "full". We have surpassed an equilibrium of housing, food, and critters. The short-lived bacteria are dieing and releasing Phosphates but there is no other habitat for the bacteria to live so nothing is grabbing the Phosphate. As a result, it stays in it's inorganic state and floats around in the tank. Then things get interesting. Algae and cyanobacteria will start taking over.

The live rock is constantly cleaning itself out. If you were to take that rock you broke, drop it in a bucket with fresh saltwater, a heater, and a powerhead, you would be amazed at how much junk spits out of it and will land on the bottom of the bucket. You could siphon the detritus out and then wait another two days and there would be more there. This is all done by bacterial turgor and it's a good thing otherwise our rocks would be always colored green with algae.

The sandbeds and mud filters also contain bacteria. They are great at temporarily storing Phosphate-laden detritus and bacteria that have Phosphate in them. However, over time they fill up. When that happens, they will leach Phosphate back into the water. That is why Leng's method of replacing mud periodically works. He's simply pulling a "full" biofilter out and putting in a fresh Biofilter to give the bacteria room to grow again and to remove the accumulated detritus and mulm. This is also why I recommend to people with sandbeds that they should perform regular maintenance on them or wait until they fill up and then remove them (which is a ROYAL PAIN!!!). Steve Weast removes his entire sandbed out of his 850 gallon tank every 3 months.....YIKES!!!

You no longer have a mudd filter so the Phosphates aren't coming from there. If you had a sandbed, I would definately look there but I know ecosystems are bare-bottom. (Actually...that is usually the first place to look....how many threads have you seen asking why cyanobacteria is growing on their sand???) By the process of elimination, we are left with your Live Rock being filled up. Once filled, it will take some time to unfill. Sometimes things have to get worse to get better.


OK....that's part one of the problem. Bacteria inhabit LR and they are filled with Phosphate. Their life cycle is very short (i.e. most species are born, eat, reproduce, and die within 24 hours). However, if there isn't enough Phosphate for their population they will actually create enzymes that will dissolve the LR itself and obtain Phosphates in that manner. So how on earth is Phosphate in LR other than in the bacteria that reside in the LR?

Ok...here's part two of the problem. Phosphate precipitation. Dissolved Inorganic Phosphates (DIP) naturally are adsorbed (yes that is spelled correctly) onto CaCO3 where it bonds with the carbonate ion. Basically, our sand bed, LR, and skeletons of our corals. They can be annoying as the bacteria will eventually free the Phosphorus that is bonded.

Particulate Inorganic Phosphorus (PIP) bonds with particulate Ca and Mg. Whenever someone complains that protein skimmers remove some Ca and Mg, I say, "Who on earth cares.....think of all of the PIP you are removing too!!! I'll gladly add some more Ca and Mg." Here's a good article by RHF that describes this http://home.mweb.co.za/jv/jv79/reef/skimmers2.html
If you are running a properly sized skimmer, then this is less of an issue. Once a biofilm develops around the particulates, they are removed by the skimmer. (Think about that before you decide to get the model that is $25 cheaper).

OK...now we are to part 3 of the problem. At low pH, the Phosphorus de-adsorbs. This article is not completely factual but it's good enough for government work. They are blaming adsorption of P on Kalkwasser when it normally happens anyway....Kalkwasser or not. The Fishline

The reason that Phosphate sponges are not very efficient is because they can only bond with the Phosphate when it is in it's inorganic state and that isn't for very long unless everything is "full". They can't touch Dissolved Organic Phosphate nor Particulate Organic Phosphate (DOP and POP).

Total P is defined as DIP, DOP, PIP and POP. This slideshow shows how this works. http://bell.mma.edu/~jbouch/OS212S00N/sld001.htm

My friend is now cooking their rock and has already had to do two water changes. The siphoning wasn't enough. They mentioned they they were amazed at how much detritus was generated. The reason cooking the rock is done in the dark is because the detritus that comes out of the rock is supernutritious for algae and we not only want the algae that is already on the rock to die, we don't want to compound the problem by letting the algae have what it needs for photosynthesis.

 

[fatman]

OK, so phosphates are tied up in precipitation with calcium carbonate and living organisms (IE. organic) have phosphate tied up in there physical selves and the pores have crap in them due to bacterial deaths within the pore spaces, which can come out of the pores, we covered that all ready. We did not discuss the differences between organic and inorganic because the differences are quite obvious. I already brought up adsorption rather than absorption. The term bacterial turgor is new to me, so I guess reading the post was worth while. Nothing else new though, but that does explain why you spoke of crap being pumped out, though. I will definitely have to read more about bacterial turgor (pressure) though. Interesting. Personally I have not had any algae problems for over a decade, with the exception of short term diatom algae when first setting up remote deep sand beds with silica sand, and have never had a bryopsis problem to deal with, in my tanks, my customers tanks or any tanks in LFS stores I have owned, run or worked in. Who is the author? Bryopsis algae in nature usually grows in pretty bad water, typically around sewage water inlets into the ocean and in really nutrient rich estuaries. Not an area where on would ever expect to find live rock harvesting going on. Phosphate is adsorbed onto calcium carbonate as part of the precipitation process, but is not later released by the bacteria, but is instead coated with more preciptated calcium carbonate. Bacteria does not create pores so as to get to phosphates covered with a solid layer of calcium carbonate. Bacteria creating an enzyme to dissolve argonite or calcium carbonate is an interesting theory. Throw out the fish line article as far as the de-absorb part. That would first require the dissolving of the aragonoite and then that would still mean leaving behind the inorganic phosphate in the deepd sand beds where the pH was low enough to dissolve the aragonite . Thanks for the post.

 

[Frankie]

Steve, I hope your not as lost as i am. LOL! I am learning a few things from this thread though. Great info everyone.

 

[Scouter Steve]

I think this has become a great discussion! Learning is one of the benefits of this hobby. Right now I am trying two different things at once. I have turned off my MH and will watch for a couple days to see if what is left in the tank starts to die. And I have about a third of my rock starting to cook. If a couple days with no MH makes a dent I won't remove anymore rock. It does amaze me how many knowledgable people are in this hobby of keeping a glass box full of rocks.

I should clarify. I have taken 1/3 of the rock out of the one tank so only about 1/6 of my total rock. Maybe less as I do have some rock in my fuge.

 

[Scouter Steve]

One question I do have though. As tough as this bryposis is, why is there room for anything else in the ocean? Very few things eat it and it doesn't need much nutrient to survive. And yet way more people have hair algae that is weak and fragile in comparison.

 

[fatman]

Most of the ocean is lit by light in the actinic blue range, and Bryopsis algae needs light in warmer wavelengths, over 550 nm at a minimum and probably higher. Plus there are plenty of organisms to eat it in the ocean, but few of those things are kept in reef tanks. Tangs would be the most likely candiadtes other than some nudibranchs ans slugs that eat only Bryopsis, but they would starve after they started to get the stuff under control and it usually comes back from the remnants they left within the rocks pores prior to their starvation. What little of it actually makes it out to shallow reefs would defintely be quickly eatten. Saying it does not need many nutrients is not really true, as it does need substantial nutrients. It just so happens that it is extremely effective at taking up the nutrients before they are able to be converted by the nitrifying bacteria or removed by skimming. If they did not multiply sexually and asexually both they would make great nutrient exporters in a sump, but there would be no good way to contain them and prevent their spread. I can imagine that some of the lagoonal areas and the remnants of reefs close to shore in the tropics might be filthy enough from untreated human wastes dumped and piped in to the ocean to support quite a bit of Bryopsis, and that the areas would be too polluted for marine fish and definitely to polluted for corals. Wouldnt that make for wonderful live rock???????

 

[mps9506]

The term bacterial turgor is new to me, so I guess reading the post was worth while. Nothing else new though, but that does explain why you spoke of crap being pumped out, though. I will definitely have to read more about bacterial turgor (pressure) though.

This is a concept that the entire rock cooking process kind of revolves around, and takes a little while to accomplish and see.
And honestly it is kind of a bad term IMO (not as bad as rock cooking ) because bacterial turgor to a micro biologist studying human or animal physiology will have an entirely different meaning.
That being said it is a term thrown around a lot over on the other board by bomber and some of the chemists. I'm trying to find a good explanation of bacterial turgor as relates to live rock that was posted by Spanky way back when, having troubles finding it, but I'll post it when I find it.

I can imagine that some of the lagoonal areas and the remnants of reefs close to shore in the tropics might be filthy enough from untreated human wastes dumped and piped in to the ocean to support quite a bit of Bryopsis, and that the areas would be too polluted for marine fish and definitely to polluted for corals. Wouldnt that make for wonderful live rock???????

When I was still in the buisness of selling fish and corals you'd be amazed at how nasty some of the live rock we would get in from Fiji would look. I've never been to Fiji, but some of the rock would arrive coated in hair algae and brown sludge, it would take months to cure. Afterwards we just started selling rock exclusively from Tonga, especially the deeperwater collected stuff.

with the exception of short term diatom algae when first setting up remote deep sand beds with silica sand, and have never had a bryopsis problem to deal with, in my tanks, my customers tanks or any tanks in LFS stores I have owned, run or worked in.

Glad to see I'm not the only one that used silica sand for DSB's I am a barebottom proponent on personal tanks now though I think only because I like the word barebottom though.