Bryopsis only thread

[acrodesiac]

I want to start a discussion on a specific algae that everyone hopes to never battle with, that algae is of course Bryopsis. I have setup and maintained almost two dozen reef tanks and have had speed bumps of all types but my newest speed bump is more like a speed mountain. I recently moved a large system into a completely different configuration that is by no means my "dream setup" but a well planned system in my opinion. The previous system was over 4 times the size of my new one with 6 tanks sharing common water. To make a long story short I was rushed in the move and built my new reef structures with LR that came from my previous refugium. This rock must have had some Bryopsis on it because during the first couple of weeks I noiced small bunches starting to form. I have battled hair algae before and have overcome with ease but I know that this green devil algae won't be defeated as easily. I have been searching the web till my eyes hurt and I feel like I'm walking in circles. I have found many stories of people dealing with this same problem but every thread ends with no success story. I have gathered a list of many techniques for getting rid of it and here is a list of the ways I have been trying to deal with this problem

-40% water changes weekly
-1 cup carbon per 100 gallons in phos-ban reactor changed weekly
-continous rowa-phos in phos-ban reactor changed monthly
-wet skimming from 2 skimmers rated together at 5 times the system volume
-all MH bulbs are less than 2 months old and are cleaned twice weekly
-insane amount of alternating flow(the surface ripples almost come out of the tank)
-UV sterilizer
-50 micron filter socks cleaned and changed twice weekly
-12% of system is refugium housing chaeto and DSB(very rapid growth with bi weekly pruning) with 7 times system hourly turnover
-brought snail count to 2 per gallon and hermits to 1.5 per gallon
-very light feeding with strained high quality frozen foods
-no tugging, pulling or scrubbing the Bryopsis

Seriously, if I was in reef keepers college I'd be getting strait A's. I watched my hair algae melt away while the Bryopsis was getting thicker and thicker and spreading to new places in the tanks. I'm only keeping the system up for another 4 or 5 months and then I will be moving again. At this point I am scared the Bryopsis will soon start to choke out my corals and that would be absolutley unacceptable. I am days away from tearing apart the two tanks and placing the rock in an isolated system in the dark with heavy skimming and no food. The corals will stay in the current system on eggcrate racks with no food. The fish will also be placed in an isolated system with some dried out DIY rock and heavy skimming with a "back to normal" feeding schedule. This is a last resort option but I have to think towards the future system that I will be building at my new home. I don't want to deal with this problem in the future system and I need to do what ever is neccessary now to prevent this problem from happening then. Does anyone out there have a 2-4 month success story with this stuff, if so please let me know because I really don't want to tear my reef apart. If you would like to know more details on my system just click the link below.

 

[twilliard]

Wow I would think that doing a 40% change weekly and rowa-less food would do the trick.
But I am not sure about the 2-4 month cure. So far I am on month 4 and mine is only about 50% gone.
I sure will follow this thread to see where it ends up

 

[fly guy]

How i won my battle with bryopsis abput a year ago went like this.

All the usual skimming wetter, feeding only what you need to, water cahnges yadda, yadda, yadda.

Anyone one who has had it knows it takes more than that to get rid of. The crap will grow when no other nuisance algae will. Even cooking your rock for 3 months wont get rid of it, it will reappear.

I pulled the rocks out of the tank that had it and pulled the majority off and rinsed, then I blow torched the patches where it was.

That and I made sure to blow off my rocks really really well, so no detritus wpould sit anywhere on them at least once if not twice a week. I used a MJ 1200 to do this and it made me make all the corals really stable to do so without blowing them around.

Im sure you already know this, but absolutely do not pull the stuff off in tank. It spreads by fractioning and if you pull it out in the tank it will spread.

The stuff is SATAN, but it can be beat. It didnt happen overnight. It took me probably 6 months and moving particular rocks out and torching them several times to get it all.

 

[salmonslayer]

Not sure if this will help cris or had anything to do with it. I had it real bad. None of my fish would touch it. It went away after I changed my bulbs from xm 20s to 12k reeflux. My xm20 were over do. I like the reeflux 12ks. Hardly tell the difference. Good luck
PS how are them frags

 

[dragoneggs]

How about some pics of the bryopsis?

 

[fly guy]

How about some pics of the bryopsis?

its kind of funny....i went looking throuogh some old pics to find you a pic of it, and i came across the specific coral that I allowed it into my system on.

I wish I knew then what i know now and i would have fragged the coral immediately and gotten rid of what was growing out of the underside of the scroll. I didnt pay much attention to it, and it slowly popped up in patches all over the tank.

I dont have any pics of when it was blocking the sun from specific corals, but from the sounds of it, im sure acrodesiac will have a few

 

[mojoreef]

Yep its not fun to deal with and if untreated it will own your system eventually. Here is one for you. Most all Plants (bryopsis included) have an affinity to bind up and absorb metals, actually metals are essencial for the metabolisms of plants. The problem is that when plants threshold limits has been reached in terms of metals the metals become an enzyme inhibitor and enzyme inhibitors in the case of Bryopsis is just what we are looking for. SO the plan is to stuff that plant with as muich metals as we can so it reaches its threshold. Ok ok metals and corals are not such a good plan...but their is an exception...our buddy Magnesium.
Raise your mg level ( try NOT to use Mg sulfate = epson salts) to approx. 1500 to 1600 and hold it thier for about 3 months. you should see a slight increase in the plants mass initically, but then it will begin to dissolve away. And yes it will play a little havoc with your alk for the time but should be an easy fix once you are done


Hope it helps


MIke

 

[Boomer]

Mojo

Raise your mg level ( try NOT to use Mg sulfate = epson salts) to approx. 1500 to 1600 and hold it thier for about 3 months. you should see a slight increase in the plants mass initically, but then it will begin to dissolve away. And yes it will play a little havoc with your alk for the time but should be an easy fix once you are done

I believe there is more of a chemical reason as to why this happens. Adding Mg++ in the from of chloride, which is the only other way other than sulfate, is that it drives up the chloride level. The plants find this hard to deal with. The only means for them to counter react this to pull in Mg++. Their "hydrolic piump" pumps in the Mg++ to kick out the chloride ions that are being pumped into the cells. They usually can not handle this to long depsite elevated Mg++ levels. They may increase growth but then wiether and die. This is common in many plants and is the issue for the success of Mangroves in saline waters. Low Mg++ for Mangroves = death in the presenc of chlorides. If you keep the Mg++ in check it is not an issue. In FW Mangrove it is not an issue at all, as there are no chlorides, therefore no need for Mg++.

 

[burning2nd]

know what i know now... if i had to do it ageain... i would just throw my rocks in the yard for 6 months.... boil em. nuke em. drive over them with a car and start over....

im tech was some what the same but

when i do water changes turn the flow off. (then) suck the algae out as im doing the water change.... careful not to let the spores get away when you pull it.... WHAT EVER YOU DO! dont touch it with the flow on... it can spread like wildfire with no no2 no ph4 no nothing 0 across the board.....

i did water changes every other day... 5 gal's Reduced feeding, rinsed heavly my food b4 feeding.... got away from frozen as much as i could....

no matter what you do, IMO you will never get rid of it..

it might be gone for now, but as soon as the conditions are right it will come back.
THe installation of my sump helped a little.. but what really did it was useing it self (in the sump) to kill it self... (fight fire with fire)

even tho its not completely gone now it is very undercontrol..... If i had the choice i would have started over... it would have bin eazyer and cheaper...

5+ buckets later

if theres anyone out there whos had Bryopsis and another algae, and can say that there is another algae out there thats harder to fight... ID like to hear about it... let me get my photos out

 

[burning2nd]

my first sight (over a year ago)

i made the mistake of pulling it while the flow was going....
i think back and say, IF at that time i would have turned the flow off... and sucked it out while doing a water change, i probly could have gotten rid of it, the first time for good.... but insted

this is how it came back the next couple of days

here i was like "YA i got it... im the winner"

boy was i wrong

 

[burning2nd]

over night it was on the other side of the tank

 

[burning2nd]

now the middle rock,

(at this time it was pritty much all over on everything)
it had killed a zoo colony)

right about now i started looking for some way to combat it..... ither something that would eat it. (none) or some way to remove it with out makeing it spread)

 

[burning2nd]

it took a really long long time, of hard water changes.... reduced feeding....
and meny nights of hair pulling..

this helped

the most

 

[brady816]

very nice pics burning2nd

 

[burning2nd]

thos are all old pic's

going back at least 1+ year

this is my sump right now...

you can see that nice peace of brypsis on the baffle.
Im super strick about what i tank from my tank and put in another tank (nothing leave's) cause this stuff can wreck a tank in no time at all.....

Im gonna go do a water change.

 

[burning2nd]

over a year now, and this is that im left with...

(i did 50% this weekend) and im doing another 5 right now.

 

[Boomer]

All there is to know about Bryopsis

Algal genus Spotlight: Bryopsis "hair algae"

 

[Damsel13]

OH MY! This story is scareing me. I will probably get it just by looking at this thread! that looks like "grape calpura in the trash. I am confused :|

 

[burning2nd]

know what it is and fighting it is 2 completly diffrent things......

13.... the trash is full of a harvest from the sump.....

i had cheto.. it cylced to calpura, then back to cheto....

next time i do an water change (with pulling) ill show you the water in the bucket (with the little bits of brypsis floating around)


that was just a shot of my sump after i cleaned it out... took about 5 harvests to make a noticeable dent

 

[burning2nd]

http://www.hawaii.edu/reefalgae/invasive_algae/chloro/bryopsis_hypnoides.htm

just some info... if you feel it will help....