What was your worst pest or algae?

[Krish]

Out of all of the nuicance algae's and pests like mojano's, red bugs etc out there, what would you say was the worst one you had to deal with? Also, did you beat it or did it beat you up?

For me, besides Scooty being the worst pest I had to deal with I had something called lobophora which at first I thought was a cool sponge and was proud of it until it started taking over my rocks!! It was a nightmare!! Eventually I had to boil some rocks and some I had to toss because of how bad it was. Worse than anything I've ever had to deal with!!

Here is a picture of it on one of my rocks.

 

[NC2WA]

No question, hands down the worse algae for me was bryopsis.

Evil, evil, and EVIL.

I was able to eradicate it out of my tank, with heavy doses of Kent Tech M over 3-4 weeks, but it took 6 months before it was completely out. Most people that have this algae result in breaking down their tank and starting again...Me, call me stubborn, tenancious, but I was not going to let the algae defeat me. Perservance and patience is the key to defeat this algae.

This was over 3 years ago and have been nuisance algae free since then.

 

[krisfal]

Bryopsis, have it now, just weeding by hand every week, pull out about a half gallon of it and it is all back by the following weekend. Waiting for a break in finances to buy enough Kent Tech M for a 400gal system.

 

[NC2WA]

Kris,

everytime you pull it you are release spores back in the tank that are multiplying..this is why this alage is EVIL..

believe me, I was pouring a gallon at a time to raise my Mg level to 1700 where I held it at this level for 4 wks.

once you see the algae turn "grey" it is safe to pull or vacuum out when u do a water change.

 

[krisfal]

Yes I realize it is spreading it, but with it getting 6" long it was smothering the coral. I feel I really have no choice at this point, I have been coping with it for a few months in this manner and it is not spreading a whole lot and at least my coral are able to see the light.

Kris,

everytime you pull it you are release spores back in the tank that are multiplying..this is why this alage is EVIL..

believe me, I was pouring a gallon at a time to raise my Mg level to 1700 where I held it at this level for 4 wks.

once you see the algae turn "grey" it is safe to pull or vacuum out when u do a water change.

 

[07FocusST]

yep... byprosis is my number 1... GHA is my number 2

 

[jrgilles]

Bryopsis. I fought it down pretty successfully with Tech M. Gone for many months. Just a few days ago I saw a few patches again on my return plumbing and on an overflow.

Raising the Mg again with Tech M. Just finished my gallon off and ordered another 64 oz bottle. Hopefully this second dose will kill it. Hitting it early while I only see those two plants this time. Hopefully that will stem the hair algae growth I had last time after the bryopsis melted.

 

[trido]

I didn't mind the lobophora nearly as bad as bryopsis. Right now I have some sort of turf/hair algea that is competing with the briopsis in my display and will have to spend the $$ on some Tech-M and phosban.

Kris, FWIW Rob at Red-C can get gallons of the Tech-M for a very reasonable price. It used to take a gallon of Tech to treat my 500G system after raising it up higher than normal with Epsom salt

 

[krisfal]

I didn't mind the lobophora nearly as bad as bryopsis. Right now I have some sort of turf/hair algea that is competing with the briopsis in my display and will have to spend the $$ on some Tech-M and phosban.

Kris, FWIW Rob at Red-C can get gallons of the Tech-M for a very reasonable price. It used to take a gallon of Tech to treat my 500G system after raising it up higher than normal with Epsom salt

Thanks Duane, I started trying to raise with Epsom salt this weekend, but was thinking I needed about 8 gallons of Tech m to try and beat this. So what level did you go to with the epsom salt first? And then do you recall how much tech-m you needed to use weekly to keep the level up? The initial outlay for 8 gallons I guesstimated I would need has been holding me back from making an order and getting started on really fighting this stuff.

Also how fast can you raise the Mg without harming anything?

 

[jrgilles]

I have wondered this and addressed it before, but I don't think anyone has an answer....

If it is, in fact, an impurity in Tech M that is killing the bryopsis, then maybe what matters is how much Tech M you add, not the actual Mg level you end up with.

If that is confusing, lets say:
1: Mg is at 1550 (a bit high) you add Tech M to get to 1600. Net change of 50 with Tech M. Bryopsis doesn't die
2: Mg is at 1100 (low) You raise to 1400 with Tech M. Net change of 300 ppm with Tech M, bryopsis dies. (lots of Tech M added)

Just food for thought on this, since is appears to be an impurity, not Mg that is killing the bryopsis. Gotta be careful how you think about it.

AND, for a more practical answer...
My system: 110-120 gallons total water volume
10 oz. Tech M (1 and 1/8 cup) raises my Mg almost exactly 50 ppm.
I was dosing twice a day, morning and evening, to raise my Mg 100 ppm per day.

I brought my Mg from 1200 ppm to 1700 ppm, and held it there for a few weeks. Took 5 days to raise it, was pretty sick looking after a week at 1700, then held it there for another 2 weeks before I did a few water changes in quick succession to bring it back down to a little over 1500, where I then quit worrying about it, letting it gradually decrease over time.

 

[Krish]

Hey Rob, I think it was Sid I read mentioning about the effectiveness of raising magnesium to kill off bryopsis. I'll have to ask him to check out the thread to see if it was him and if he has any thoughts on your post. I've never dealt with the stuff and hope never to! Sounds evil!!

I once had a bad case of hair algae. Beat me up pretty bad. So bad I took down my tank and switched to freshwater lol. Came back a year later better educated and beat it. Knock on wood, so far I've never had bryopsis or Aiptasia.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[returnofsid]

I have posted about using Kent TechM, to battle Bryopsis, having done it myself, twice.

While I agree that, since it's an impurity, that the amount of Mg may not be important, the only way we have of figuring it out is by calculating the amount of the Mg. We don't know what the impurity is, we don't have a test kit for the unknown impurity and we don't know the percentage of the unknown impurity that's in the TechM or the amount needed to kill Bryopsis. Because of all of this, all we have to go by IS the amount of Magnesium dosed.

Also, some are of the opinion that it's not JUST the high magnesum (high amount of impurity) but the sudden shock of quickly raising the magnesium, say from 1300 ppm to 1700 ppm, over a period of a couple of days. Again, we don't know anything about the impurity, so have nothing to go by other than the amount of Magnesium.

I've used this method twice. The first time, I feel I didn't keep my levels elevated for long enough. The second time, I kept the levels elevated for about 3 months. Both times, the Bryopsis completely vanished, day 5. However, the first time, the Bryopsis returned after a couple of months. The second time, the Bryopsis never returned. That was probably 8 months ago, or so. Both times, I raised my Mg level to about 1700ppm, from a standard level of 1250, over a 3 day period.

 

[1guydude]

I'd say aptasia or cyano...never had bad outbreaks or anything. I just can't rid my tanks of it..I always get a lil ugly nem on a frag or something. I've lost candy cane coral too some daisys/cloves that just grew right over it like a pest .... O and crabs....kool lil guys that were just really hard to get rid of.

 

[trido]

Thanks Duane, I started trying to raise with Epsom salt this weekend, but was thinking I needed about 8 gallons of Tech m to try and beat this. So what level did you go to with the epsom salt first? And then do you recall how much tech-m you needed to use weekly to keep the level up? The initial outlay for 8 gallons I guesstimated I would need has been holding me back from making an order and getting started on really fighting this stuff.

Also how fast can you raise the Mg without harming anything?

I don't remember the exact details of how much I dosed. I probably just used the chemistry caclulator in Micheal's (returnofsid) sig line. I would raise it up from normal to near 1500 over week and then spend another week jumping it up to near 1700 by adding a half cup of Tech-m daily. The briopsis would stop growing at just over 1500 and then significatly die off at around 1700 . I dont recall if my numbers were really that high but the briopsis did die back both times I did it. I ended up having to do this twice over the course of two years due to my reintroduction from frag trading. The one gallon jug took care of it both times with this method. Just a mere $40+ treatment.

Maybe 50 pts a day increase max. 25 would be better if you have the patience.

 

[NC2WA]

IME and what worked for me:

the key is to shock the sytem by raising the Mg level quickly...I raised mine from 1100 to 1500 in one day, then to 1700 where I kept it at this level for 4 wks...any water change requires redosing Tech M back to the 1700 level...ultimately, you dont want to perform a water change for at least 2 wks..if you can get away with 3 wks the better...if after 4 wks you still have bryopsis, then keep maintaining Mg level at 1700 for another one or so, until u see the algae dying off (indicated by a greyish white color).

FWIW, Tech M is the ONLY thing that worked for me..I tried everything (Epsom salt and Mg Sulfate and Chloride) to no avail..

 

[phasezero]

Predatory adult Amphipods were my worst pest. They were decimating zoa frags in one night or colonies over a few days. Worst part is that the tank with the biggest infestation was our frogfish tank. So we were unable to add any pod hunters to the tank. We ended up freshwater dipping every single rock. Must have killed at least 700+ adult Amphipods. We still have some of them left but the competition for food is much lower now so they are satisfied with scraps for now. A few weeks ago in my sps 55g, i decided to put my pocillopora frag on the rock structure, i woke up to find multiple amphipods on it like corn on a cob. They ripped all the polyps and some tissue off the 1/2" pocillopora frag. I returned the frag to my rack where it made full recovery.

 

[MGDMIRAGE]

Aiptasia has been my biggest battle, early on cyano was a nightmare too.

 

[07FocusST]

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

 

[1guydude]

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...

 

[Lbrewer34]

I'd say aphasia was my worst. I ended up with a pretty successful fix, but not very effective. I got sidetracked last fall with college and my tank temp went up, water changes went down and protein skimmer went out. Haven't seen any aphasia since, but i lost everything short of some kenya and xenia.