What was your worst pest or algae?

[phasezero]

Those look like copepods to me... Idk though with all those lil critters. I've heard of this pred pod thing before. They used melafex I think it was...

These are microscope shots we took of them. You can pretty easily tell if something is an Amphipod because they run around with curled back ends.

I didn't know amphipods would become predatory in their adult stage of life....

I think the chance is small and happens mostly where they are starting to over populate. It must be pretty rare because if you search about it you'll find many people swearing their amphipods are doing the damage and everyone responding that Amphipods are strictly detritivores. They are just fortunate to not have experienced it yet. It's a pain because many of the fishes you can possibly add to battle the issue go right to sleep when the lights go off, and that's when the pods start their dinner party.

 

[Chichas01]

Dinoflagellates. Pure evil.

 

[jezzeaepi]

I think I have fought just about everything by now in my 7 years of reefing. Here is my list of pests starting with the worst:

1. Absolute worst by a large margin is aptasia. My infestation numbered in the thousands after a very unsuccessful long term battle. I tried CBB, 20 x berghia, kalk paste, peppermint shrimp, and even the electrified poker thingie that I think Paul B made. I finally gave up and took all the rocks out of my tank and moved them to a 32g trash can where I have been slowly starving the aptasia to death by denying them food and light. I think they have been in the trash can for 6 or 7 months now, and 99% of them have died. I realize that a quicker solution would have been to just completely kill my live rocks and start over, but they have 5-6 years of biodiversity built up on them by now, and I didn't want to lose that. I hope to have these completely beat within the next month or two.

2. AEFW. If you are lucky enough to catch them early, you *might* save half your corals. This is a very labor intensive battle because of all the dipping you have to do it insure they are all dead due to the fact that the dip doesn't kill the egg sack.

3. Dinoflagelates. People sometimes confuse cyano with dino's, but once you've had them you know that they aren't even close. Dinos are litterally a poison. Killed off all my snails and hermit crabs that had to walk through it, as well as my prized helfrici firefish that ate it and died a sad death. I finally kicked this one by doing a number of things including increasing my flow, opening up my rock work and massive amounts of water changes and wet skimming. I think it took 3-4 months.

4. Cirolanid Isopods. I was lucky to catch these while I was still curing my live rock, so they didn't make it to my new display. Took 6 months of setting "traps" and starving them out before I was finally rid of them and able to put my LR in my display.

5. Rock crab. My first batch of live rock came from Tampa bay saltwater, and among the many hitch hikers was a "cute little crab" that turned in to a vicious killer. By the time I figured out what was going on he had eaten 4 or 5 porcelain crabs, half a dozen snails and hermit crabs, and even an entire serpent star fish. This may seem like an easy fix, but man was it strong, and it was always able to get to a hole in a rock and hide. One day I finally thought I had killed the bastard when I ripped off his claw and stabbed him multiple times. Thinking I had won the battle, I replaced my clean up crew, and he went unseen for about 2 months. I again notice that my cleaning crew is gone, so I hatch a plan to stake out the tank late at night. Sure enough, the rock crab from hell emerges, and he is literally 3 times the size as when I had last seen him. I was so angry I chucked him off my balcony...

6. Bryopsis. Psh childs play =P Get some snails and boost up that mag. Seriously though I know this one is tough for some, but it went away easily for me.

The biggest thing though is just to never give up.

Peace,
Jesse

 

[krisfal]

So Tech M arrived yesterday, ordered 5 gallons hope it is enough. Reef calculator shows I need 227ml (just under 2 gallon) to raise mg from current 1400ppm to 1700ppm. It advised not to add all at once, rather 1/3 to 1/2 then wait a day. So I am going to add a gallon today in 3-4 additions spread throughout the day so I can watch for any obvious adverse reactions. Really hope this works. If left alone this stuff would take over the tank in a month or so and all I would have is algae.

 

[jrgilles]

That sounds dangerous. I would raise 100 ppm per day. 50 ppm in morning then 50 ppm at night until you get to 1700 then hold it there for a month or so

Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk

 

[Maxx]

Kris,
I've sucessfully beat bryopsis just by using mag sulfate from BRS. Raised the mag steadily, 100 pts or so everyday, as measured by Salifert kit. Raised it 1600, and maintained it there for several weeks. Havent had an issue since.

Currently, I'm hating valonia and vermetid snails, but neither is really a pest, more like annoying and unsightly.
I've had red bugs and red planaria, meh... Easy fix.
Had AEFW once, lost pretty much everything trying to treat them. Now, I'm super anal about what goes in the tank and examine everything VERY closely.

Nick

 

[trido]

I agree with the two posts above Kris. Raise it up slowly or you will bleach a lot of coral from the shock. I just finished treating my tank with the slow method and my corals could have cared less. My bryopsis algea is gone.

 

[krisfal]

Over two days I have raised to 1600 ppm, is 1600 enough? I think Duane had mentioned 1700 in a previous post so I was initially aiming for that.

FSFI (for somebodies future reference) 1 gallon raised Mg from 1400 to 1600 in a 414 gallon system. Since I was not measuring each addition and I did not stick to my own timeline as stated above, I ended up adding that in six seperate additions spaced out over about 40 hours. No obvious reactions from any coral, all still polyped out as of last night. So hopefully I did not do any damage

 

[jrgilles]

I guess watch the bryopsis and observe. I have always done 1700. Last time I raised from 1500 to 1700 and it killed it, so you have a larger net change (since it is supposedly an impurity that is doing the killing.)

May want to go to 1700 to be safe?

 

[krisfal]

I guess watch the bryopsis and observe. I have always done 1700. Last time I raised from 1500 to 1700 and it killed it, so you have a larger net change (since it is supposedly an impurity that is doing the killing.)

May want to go to 1700 to be safe?

Thanks for the input, yeah I want to make sure this is gone, not cheap to treat a tank this size so I only want to do it once! I am going to keep raising up to 1700.

 

[NC2WA]

kris,

if you can get it to 1700 would be better..keep it at this level for at least 4 wks..if you have to do water changes during this period, then you need to dose again back to 1700 and keep stable.

 

[Bob_Posey]

Bryopsis, I didn't have it all that bad and it didn't seem to spread all that quick but I bought a Sea Hare and he took care of it for me. Once it was gone, he had nothing left to eat so I had to get rid of him.

 

[N1Husker]

Cyano for me, finally got rid of it after a couple treatments with Chemiclean.

 

[krisfal]

So how long before I see a change in the byropsis? I have had my Mg at 1700ppm for about a week and a half and not sure I am seeing any difference. Possibly it is not growing as aggressive, but not yet seeing any die off.

On the bright side, some of the really hard green algea on the acrylic came off while doing my usual weekend algea mowing, this is the stuff that usually slowly builds up on me at the edges until I get in and scrape it off with my kent scraper every couple of months (typically just use the algea dozer once a week), I was suprised when the algea dozer took it off this weekend.

 

[NC2WA]

Kris

Not long enough

At least 4-6 wks before u see something

To defeat this pest u need time and patience :-D

 

[krisfal]

Kris

Not long enough

At least 4-6 wks before u see something

To defeat this pest u need time and patience :-D

That is what I needed to know. I can deal with the waiting, as long as I am not waiting in vane.

Thanks!

 

[N1Husker]

How can you tell if your clown has byropsis and can other fish get it? What are the symptons or visual abnormalities.

 

[NC2WA]

Earl,

Bryopsis is an algae issue and not a parasite issue for fish..

 

[N1Husker]

Thank you sir.