Bryopsis Removal

Listen if your having algae problems, first off it ( any algae ) needs a few things to over run your tank.
1, over feeding , ( causing nitrates/phosphate etc. to build. )
2, the Bryposis or other i.e hair algae "what ever" will feed upon this, and it will spread like wild fire.
3, to long a "photo period" will just make things worse , it needs light to grow to.
( NO longer than 7/8 hour lighting time. )
4, also "wet skimming works well" if you skimmer is adjustible, works great in helping remove algae spores, light water materials, etc. ( this should be done while your home, it will fill jug/bucket quickly some times ).

You might consider turning lights off all together for a few days/week if you can, or you
can remove each rock, scrub hard and swish in some ro water , place the rock back in tank.
and/or cut lighting down to nill' ( somthing like 2/3 hours a day if you have some corals,)
Corals can surrive with minimal/no lighting for quite some time.

Lighting: change out bulbs that are old , ( any buld thats older than 12 months, some people change them out sooner than that ), spectrum changes over the life of the bulb/s and some spectrums just encourage algea growth.

Trick is to get a handle on it ' before that crap hell spawn over runs the tank, even the best of us have had to go thrue what you have now.

 

No,. you have to kill ALL of it.

 

how bad is it?you may do more harm than good by killing off everything good in the liverock

 

Nuke it.

 

First, are you positive that what you have is bryopsis? If it definitely is, even if you remove the infested rocks, the spores are still in your tank. Adding new live rock may just add more unwanted algae and other pests. I would nuke the rock and start over if you can't get rid of the algae by other means.

 

When you day nuke the rock do you mean scrub it then place in boiling water? I wanted to do 1-2 pieces a day until all the rock is done. I just don't know how this will effect the biological filtration
Adam

 

No, I mean bleach it and kill it completely. Boiling is too much trouble and you end up with the same result....100% dead rock.

 

if its growing fast then its probly just algae and you can get a sea hare to mow it down in a few days.seahares are such pigs that they will sometimes eat stuff that makes them sick if algae is gone,mine started eatting green star polyps it was so hungry so i had to give it away.bryopsis grows slow.i had some in my tank and i just ignored it.once in awhile it would get a big enough clump that i pulled it out.i suspect it could'nt compete with the basketball sized ball of chaetto in my sump and just kind of slowly went away.

 

I have read that slowly raising the Magnesium levels in the tank to about 2500 will kill of the Bryopsis. I have a friend that has just successfully done this in an SPS tank. Worked very well.
It is not something that should be done without very good planning and monitoring.
He had a lot of brown outs on his coral but all are coming back now.

If you decide to nuke your rock. You will have to do it all at the same time. doing a few rocks at a time will not work.

Good Luck
J

 

If I was going that far, think I would consider going all the way and replace sand and water also to remove possibilty of loose spores floating about.

Don't forget to also "nuke" all equipment you have hanging in tank...powerheads, etc...

What a mess....sorry. :-[