NO more fooling around - the bryopsis has got to go!

[Jenemone]

Okay. I have posted my problem several times before. Every surface of my rock that is exposed to light has 1-2" of bryopsis growing on it. Every surface.

I have plucked and pulled, done water changes out the wazoo, added more snails, a nudibranch, increased skimming, and even tried a pencil urchin ( which died). I am vacuuming the gravel and trying to get under the rocks, also. I have been running phos-zorb for about six months, so I don't have a problem with other algae types. Only bryopsis. Which has even plugged the skimmer intake.

So I would sell everything in here if I could get rid of it, but this is really expensive rock. Even my leather coral has algae on it, and the snails!

1.) I want to kill this stuff, not manage it. Is there a CHEMICAL that I can add? I don't care if it kills the coralline b/c it is getting smothered anyway. If it upsets the bio-balance, I will have to deal with it. It cannot go on like this.

2.) I am cutting the lighting cycle back to eight hours, from 12. Will this hurt the corals or anemone? And would I see a benefit from leaving the light OFF for 2-3 days?

Please tell me the most drastic measure to take!

Oh yeah - tank inhabitants are blue damsel, domino damsel, tomato clown, bta, leather, trumpet coral, lots of shrooms, yellow polyps, white star polyps, two peppermint shrimp, one unidentified coral (looks like a two inch open brain), and various snails and blue legs.

Thanks guys!

Jenn

I pluck once a week, and I am looking at three inch clumps as we speak.

 

[Jenemone]

^^

 

[Anonymous]

I know of no chemical to add to get rid of the stuff.
Have you checked the age of your lights? Old lights shift in spectrum and up comes the icky green.
What kind of lights do you have. In my tank Bryopsis loved VHO actinic, so I got rid of it. Also if you have lights for dawn/dusk, you can leave the main light on for only 5 or 6 hours, but the supplement lights on longer.
I don't know if you would see a result from turning the light off for 2-3 days.
Have you added macro algae to the tank/sump to uptake the nutrients that the bryopsis is using?
Have you blasted the rocks with a powerhead, to get all the gook off them, and filtered the tank with a canister filter at the same time?
After you pulled the stuff off the rock, have you put the rocks back in the tank upside down - so the bryopsis gets no light?
Have you been underfeeding the tank?
You could move all the live animals to another tank (or into the sump - with lights of cours- if you have one) for a while and leave the lights off in the main tank for several weeks. I think setting up a small tank would cost less than thrashing the main tank with chemicals.
There is no quick fix to this problem that I know of. Sorry. I recently beat it, so it can be done.
Good luck!

RR

 

[SPC]

Mrrrkva, I am not sure what picture you were referring to, what I saw in your tank however was caulerpa.
Jen, the suggestions that Righty gave are excellent. I would like to emphasize his point of making sure there is nothing on the rocks that the bryopsis can be feeding on. I would use a hang on filter (I use a hot magnum) and blow the rocks off repeatedly. Continue to do this each time you walk by the tank and clean the filter when needed. I would also add a refugium with macro if you haven't done this.
Steve

 

[mrrrkva]

Can you guys show me what this looks like with a pic?? Or check out my website and see if i got it. I have a macro I couldnt get rid of too.

 

[MandarinFish]

Can I get bryonpsis from you for my sump?

Gladly pay shipping, of course....

I'm trying to keep a wide array of macroalgaes and mangrove for bio filtration in my sump.

 

[Jenemone]

Thanks for the suggestions. I am running 130 watts of power compact lighting. I ordered a ballast and a half and half bulb to add also. The existing lighting is about 6500K if I remember correctly.

I am using an emperor280 and I have just added a rio 600 powerhead in the hopes that a strong current might help matters.

I pulled wads of this stuff out tonight. And I am REALLY pissed now because in the two weeks since I last plucked it, it choked out my "mini-brain". It came on my live rock and looked like a 1" open brain. Now all that is left is a skeleton.

I don't have a sump, and I had wanted to add macros to the main tank, but I can't get my hands on any.

Mandarinfish,
You are welcome to this stuff, but its a curse. E-mail me if you want some. I can send you a small chunk of rock with it.

Jenn

 

[marinelife]

You could also try a Blue-Spotted Rabbitfish. They eat it, I just got mine after 1.5 months, it is a fish that has to be ordered, there is no place online that has then instock, I had my LFS order on for me. So far it is eating Nori but has only been in the tank 24hrs. Once my tangs leave him alone I think he will be fine. I have been told by the LFS and others online that this is the fish to have to eat algae

 

[SPC]

Jenn, I have 4 or 5 different kinds of macros in my sump. I would be glad to let you have some, I am not sure how well they ship though.
Steve

 

[Terry McGee]

keep your alk up when it drops it helps bryopsis grow. test for alk and see, take care, Terry

 

[Mouse]

I had some bryopsys in my tank, but then i had some good fortune when a macro decided to come out of the rocks. The macro swamped all the bryopsys, and i beleave its now all gone. Now i have 1 macro thats easy to remove, and also loads of little patches of different mosses that look really cool. Id go with a fast growing, easyly removed macro, thats the only way i managed to sort it and i tryed everything. best of luck to you.

 

[Paul A. Ifkovits]

Try lowering yur temperature to around 78 degrees. Do this very slowly.

I eradictated my outbreak in 2 weeks by 1) lowering temp 2) cut feeding back dramatically no frozen food, no DT's 3) blasted it with a hot kalk paste at night and suctioned it back out next morning.

Paul
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ultra sonja pics

 

[Greg Hiller]

Unless you can find a fish that eats it you are IMO/IME out of luck. I fought Bryopsis for about a year with everything I could think of, urchins, the sea slug that eats it, etc. etc. I ended up tearing down the tank and bleaching all the rock. The rock can (and should) be reused after all the bleach has been rinsed away. If you have just a few batches of Bryopsis you can remove the rocks, or cover the patches with putty epoxy. With the outbreak you have....I hate to say it....you are DOOMED.

- Greg Hiller

 

[esmithiii]

I, too have been fighting bryopsis for a few months. Here is a picture:

I covered mine with a small plate for several weeks (3 to 4) to keep the light off it. Maybe black plastic would work better. It is gone in the areas where the plate shielded the light. Also, I turned the rocks upside down where possible to eliminate the light getting to the bryopsis. This seems to be working well.

Ernie

[ January 25, 2002: Message edited by: esmithiii ]</p>

 

[dragon0121]

If I had bryopsis like the picture above, I would pull the rock, put it in a trash can with a heater and power head, and put it in the dark. Let that crap die a long slow death!

In 3 or 4 months I would pull the rock back out and try again.

On a side note I would like to personally thank Mr. Paul A. Ifkovits(I believe I heard it from you first, if not tell us who you heard it from) for his idea on kalk paste on the bryopsis. I won't go into the whole story, but after 90% of my bryopsis crashed (after 2 years of battling it!) one night

, the other 10% started to slowly spread again. D@mn Devil Weed!!!! So I mixed up the kalk paste like I was going to kill aptasia, turned off all the pumps, picked out all I could, carefully covered those spots on the rocks with kalk paste. Waited 10-15 minutes and syphoned the kalk paste back out. My initial impression looking at the bryopsis was, well that had no effect! LOL! The next morning the rock was bryopsis free! YES! If it doesn't work the first time I would try again leaving the kalk paste on for longer. Not much in our tank will survive the super high pH of straight kalk paste. Careful, boys and girls, don't let the kalk paste blow around in the tank and get on your precious babies!

 

[Jenemone]

I had not heard of the kalk paste trick. I have a few rocks that I could possible remove and put in a container, but several of my rocks have mushrooms, etc.

I may try a combo of flipping a few of the rocks, kalk paste, and removing the worst ones for a while. I have also been blasting them with the powerhead, but it keeps stopping up.

Can someone tell me exactly how to mix the paste? I use turbo calcium, so I'm not familiar with kalkwasser. Can't you use pickling lime?

 

[jake levi]

Most all species of rabbit fish will eat it.
jake

 

[Paul A. Ifkovits]

Dragon - Glad it helped. It took me several applications before it killed it all and as mentioned, I left mine over night.
Jenemone - Mix approx 1 tablespoon hot RO water with 2 teaspoons kalkwasser (pickling lime is fine). Take Dragons advise and turn off all return pumps/power heads. I used a syringe from a dentist. Got one when I had my wisdom teeth pulled that tapered to a nice point and had a slight angle. When applied in the tank, it comes out as a nice paste almost gellatin-like and coats very well.
However, do not ignore all the other suggestions. This stuff is living off of organics coming into your tank. A long term maintenance plan is required to keep it from returning.

Paul
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recession?