Byropsis Help needed

M

Malefactor

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So, got everything stabilized in my tank. Most algae is dying off, but it appears the little bit of byropsis i had THOUGHT i'd gotten rid of took advantage of everything else dying off. Now it has exploded all over the place. What can i do to get rid of this stuff?

Nitrate - 0 (after algae / skimmer does it's thing - VERY low bioload. 3 fish in a 180G system with 1 anemone and 3 coral frags)
Nitrite - 0
Ammonia - 0
Calcium - 425
Magnesium - (No clue - no test kit yet)
P04 - (No clue - no test kit yet)

I did just get a skimmer and up and running. That's when all the other algae died off and disappeared. What else can i do to start resolving this problem?
 
Lights out and cover tank (we used cardboard), h2o2, and elevated magnesium using Tech M. 3 day lights out at a time, magnesium at 1600, forget how much h2o2 right now but it is documented on other threads. This combination worked for us recently with a tank full of LPS and zoas and a substantial bryopsis outbreak, battle lasted about 1.5 months. However, we are now fighting a GHA battle and winning slowly with an appropriate CUC, phosphate reduction, and manual removal. I am certain our issue is related to using mostly dry rock without cooking it when we started the tank. I knew that using that rock was going to present an algae issue and I was prepared to deal with it, just did not know that it was going to present this big of an issue. Lesson definitely learned. Be diligent and you can beat it in the long run. Would be helpful to try and figure out the root cause and attack it with vengeance, especially while you have very limited livestock in the tank.
 
The root cause was a rock i added with mushrooms on it. The GHA i don't mind. It was easy to rid myself of... I added the tang *lol*. I'm afraid of doing lights out right now because of the frags i JUST got. Don't wanna shock them too much since they're still LITTLE and i just got them like 3-4 days ago. Will get a magnesium test kit and give it a try to see if i can start battling it that way for now. Once these frags get a little bigger and are encrusted / established in this tank i'll start doing some lights out. H2O2 i'm afraid of as well. My Anemone didn't like it AT ALL when i did it for the Cyano. It took 2 weeks to perk him back up.
 
I've tried lights out/tank covered with various marine algae and never had good results. You can try the elevated magnesium. It didn't work for me, although mine may have been an odd caulerpa species. What did work: A LOT of H2O2 spot treated into the algae on a daily basis for a month or two. I was dosing around 1 cc per gallon injected directly into the algae patches, pumps off. The next day hit the same algae patch again if it isn't gray. Some patches took 5-6 days for me. Possible that they were dead but not rotten, but it wasn't worth the risk. If it is gray, make sure it isn't green underneath (if so hit it again). Once the bubbles have stopped or significantly slowed turn the pumps back on. Obviously if there is any easy manual removal start with that. If it's too tricky just stick with the H2O2.

A couple notes:
1) I have no specific filter media other than a lot of live rock, so running H2O2 through a filter wasn't a concern of mine.
2) I have a ball of chaeto in the back which was taking up the slack as the other algae stopped. As the algae in the front died, oddly so did the algae in the chaeto which I never treated.
3) If you have a big infestation, you won't be able to hit it all every day the first time, so pick a spot to work from.
3) It will have roots in the rocks. Keep blasting these as they grow out again and eventually they'll stop coming back.
4) This seemed like a horrific amount of H2O2 to me. I suspect it did not harm the tank only because most of it reacted inside the algae mass before mixing in the tank. I started with 1 cc/5 gallons and slowly ramped up every couple days while watching my coral (lps, sps, softies) and fish for signs of stress. I never did see any notable stress, but got to the point that I could treat all remaining algae all at once.
5) You can kill it off faster than the system can consume the nutrients left. Mine never tested NO3 or PO4, but after around 2 months of treatment the corals all started growing faster and the nuisance algae stopped appearing.
 
Yeah, the H2O2 really does scare me. When i first got cyano i heard it helps. Did that and my anemone freaked. Closed up and stayed that way for days and quit eating for about 2 weeks. Bleached horribly and is just now recovering (a month later). So, if magnesium doesnt work. I may just have to live with it until i get enough caulepra and Charlton to out compete it
 
@Malefactor wrote:
Yeah said:
I could see H2O2 having a hard time with cyano since it has a thick protective film. How much H2O2 did you use and how did you apply it? I used a 10 cc glass pipette, although a syringe would work too.
Click to expand...
 
The solution is to get rid of the cause. Bryopsis is one of the more difficult algae to rid. Feed pellet. Run a wet skim. Add Tech M at 1500. Foxface usually eat bryopsis. Alk at 7.8. Use a product like Prodibio to assist with nutrient export. It has been a few years now since my bryopsis was eradicated.
 
I'm fairly certain i know the cause...

1). I wasn't using PURE water for my mix. the best i could hope for my RO/DI to get was 15TDS. It was the best i could get at the time for $100.
2). Live Rock was my only filtration for about 3 months. When i first started out because of such a low bio load and even though tank is drilled, i had no sump or anything else
3). A single piece of live rock i got i left uncured with no protective measures due to not wanting to kill anything in it (bristle worms, fan worms, pods, coral, sponge, macro algae-one of which no one has been able to identify yet, but looks freaking awesome to me- ect...) I got that piece of live rock specifically to add diversity to my tanks smaller organisms and it did a wonderful job of it... Unfortunately the byropsis came with it at as well.

Now, i've got a spectrapure select 99%+ RO membrane otw, new DI resin, Chloramine GAC with canister, .5 Micron Carbon block and 1 Micron Sediment filter otw to replace the parts of my current RO/DI filters. This should get me to 0TDS for a while

Got a SWC Skimmer rated for 350 Gallons or 170 Gallons of HEAVY bioload. Considering i'm running 165G total (including sump) and have an exceptionally light bio load at the moment... I think i'm covered on filtration now.

The live rock... Well, now the Byropsis is in the tank and all over, so not much i can do about that one.
 
I had and outbreak in my IM30, and I'm not sure which specifically I'll the combo, but I decreased my bio load to a single clown (I would have gone fishless so I wouldn't have to feed at all for awhile, but I couldn't get rid of my clown lol), added a long spine urchin, an emerald crab, red legged Cortez hermits, and I manually pulled it to keep it as thinned out as possible. It took less than about a month before I noticed it was barely present.


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I've only got the 3 fish (2 clown and a hippo tang) in a 135+55G Sump. Got 2 emerald crab, 2 hermit crabs (1 red legged and 1 blue). Been pulling as much as i can and using a tooth brush to rub it off rocks and go through the filter into a sock that i pull as well
 
Yeah, i need to get more of a clean up crew. I've also got 2 Turbo snails. However, 2 Turbo, 2 Emerald Crab and 2 Hermit Crab isn't much for a 135 (150G footprint) tank...
 
I had a similar situation and ventured into the hydrogen peroxide. You can google what corals are tolerant, mainly soft are. I also sat in on a Mr Saltwater tank conf call about the subject and it was discussed to either manually apply directly to area outside of tank (fully concentrated) or dip in a saltwater/peroxide mix. Stuff works but will kill inverts and it is not recommended to add directly to tank,although I know some people do.
Never tried upping the Mag, because if you test wrong it could really screw things up. Clearly figuring out your source and starving it out are the best bets and it will take time.
 
i did squirt it directly on the affected areas, but inside my tank. However, at the time there was a lot of affected area, so i probably over dosed. I'd have to get a mag test and then the kent magnesium supplement as i hear that's what actually works. Not all mag supplements will do the job, but for some reason Kent's does it. Otherwise, now that i have proper filtration in forms of RO/DI and a skimmer. It's already dying off... Maybe this will completely eradicate it before it's over. Only been about 4 days and my collection cup on the skimmer (which isn't small... It's a SWC Xtreme 200) is already about 1/8th full. So, probably a good cup or couple cups worth of skimmate that's completely brown. Can't see through it at all.
 
I had been doing hand to hand combat with Byopsis for about 4 months prior to 3/8/2015. I read all the forums and tried all remedies that I could find. Nothing would phase it, so weekly I would manually remove it. My water parameters had been perfect and it entered my tank on a SPS frag plug. Desperate and sick and tired of this stuff all over my tank I called Jack Kent at Continuum Aquatics. We spoke on the phone and discussed the problem and my tank in detail. Jack suggested that I try their Bacter Clean-M product. Jack warned me that it would take time but just have to stick with the recommended dosing. I ordered it that day and began dosing as recommended. With in 3 weeks I started to see it turning white. In the 4th week since starting treatment I manually removed all that I could see. I am happy to report that as of today I have 0 in my tank. Also very little thin green algae on glass. I have not had to clean my glass in the past 2 weeks. I am continuing to use Bacter Clean-M in the maintenance dose and I could not be happier. My sps mixed reef tank overall seems to be much healthier, all corals are growing and happy. This product is amazing...................... http://www.continuumdirect.com
 
So, this problem right here... Back again... Here's the newest update

Calcium is at 460
Magnesium is currently at 1550
Phosphates at .05
0 Nitrate
0 Nitrite
0 Ammonia

So, i had upped my Magnesium to 1800 and kept it there for about a month. My fish are in quarantine (ich) so i figured this is a good time to get rid of the algae. After increasing magnesium the stuff died back A LOT... As in... It was all gone from what i could tell and nothing was left but a brown sludge. I cleaned out as much of that as i could. I LIGHTLY fed corals while fish were out and corals did suffer. DURING the mag treatment i ALSO did a black out 3 days at a time. 3 Days black out then 2 days light. 3 Days black out... Did this for 2 weeks... Everything seemed to be going great. Was also pulling / scrubbing rocks best i could to get as much out as i could...

2 days after starting up coral feeding again + adding fish.. It's back. EVERYTHING else as far as algae is dead. All the hair, strand, even some bubble i started noticing once the bryopsis was dying off is gone... The bryopsis is back. The tiny little leaf like fronds are popping up EVERYWHERE. It's not bad, they're still small, but quite obviously making a firm carpet over EVERYTHING. Soon i'm going to start Carbon Dosing (not QUITE setup for it yet, but getting there slowly and surely). I lost all my cleanup crew except my cleaner shrimp (which doesn't eat Algae anyways) and 1 of my mexican turbo snails of my 2. Emerald Crabs, Hermits, Peppermint Shrimp, Cerinth and Nerite snails all done and gone now. So, i'm about to order (will actually do a group buy on here) a new cleanup crew... Question is - what should i focus on to combat this problem? Is there anything that will help? I've heard the caribbean / mexican red leg hermit crabs will actually eat the stuff. Is there anything else? Any and all help is appreciated. I've tried all i can think of at this point. Hydrogen Peroxide, lights out, manual scrubbing, tangs and Kent Tech-M. RO filter is producing 0 TDS mix water (and OMG did that new membrane and carbon filters make a difference... It's literally lasting 10x's longer than before), so carbon dosing is the only thing left i can think of to combat my high phosphate numbers which aren't all THAT bad i don't think (i just don't have the funds to keep up with GFO reactor right now. $15-20 every week or two is out of the question until wife gets a new job or one of my side jobs takes off).
 
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