Byropsis sp. problem

About a week ago I changed my photo-period.

For lights I have a t5 48" - 324 Watts - (3x54 Watt 10K Daylight + 3x54 Watt 460nm Actinic)

I was originally running actinics only from 9:30-11am and 10-11PM, then daylights + 1 actinic from 11am-10:30pm.

My new schedule is actinics from 10am-11pm, and daylights from 11am-10pm.

This seems to have kick started an outbreak of Byropsis sp. (as well as some film algae), I thought it was originally GHA, but it's very feathery in nature and nothing seems to really eat in in my CUC. I took at look at http://www.3reef.com/forums/algae/ultimate-nuisance-algae-thread-58657.html and it pretty much says that magnesium is the only way to stop this/starve it. (also, big props to John Maloney for being a human encyclopedia)

I'm a bit confused by this outbreak because I have quite a bit of Macro-algae growing in my tank that came in on Live rocks and I always heard that macro will get nutrients before nuisance algae. I also don't have any fish yet, so overfeeding really isn't a cause either.

Water params are:
ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, phosphate - 0
SG - 1.0245
PH - 8.2

Has anyone had success in battling this before? Did a specific CUC member or magnesium work for you? Any other advice?

Would an elevated magnesium level damage and polyp/zoa corals?

So far my plan of attack is going to be dialing back my actinics to run in the morning, midday, and then night. I will also be doing some frequent water changes over the next week or two to see if that helps kick it. If this is unsuccessful I may need to go the magnesium route.

-Thank you for any advice you can give.

 

Hi Doc

can you get a picture up please as there are some species of Bryposis that even increased mag levels dont help with

maybe John Maloney or one of the other more experienced Algae ID people can help with that specific type

but I can tell you that higher Mag levels is effective at prevention (not sure about cure) for many species of hair type algaes and that levels of 1500 or more provided they are raised to those levels slowly does not bother most coral species IME

I am currently running 1470 , and have been as high as 1530 (Tropic Marin test kit)
and have not experienced any GHA plagues in my current set up . I have had rock and new coral bases with it on, but my CUC seems to deal with it faster than it can grow and I believe the higher mag level is part of the reason for this (combined with using GFO - 24/7 and using Purigen to control my nitrates)

hopefully someone else can give you a more specific answer for your exact situation
But get an image up as a positive ID on your algae species is the 1st step towards dealing with the issue

Steve

 

bryopsis is a macro algae species....the term "macroalgae" in the hobby is somewhat confusing....everything but film, cyano or diatoms that is a nuisance "algae" in our tanks is macroalgae. So chaeto is and byropsis is etc..even though the term "macroalgae" in the hobby usually only refers to desirable species, and everything else is nuisance algae, a designation unknown to science/nature etc....

The Bryopsis species, (especially B. pennata), are very efficient at getting nutrients, so it is possible that they can out compete many of the macro species you would have in there, but the inclusion of desirable algae will surely help slow its growth.

There is one trick, (I believe originally discovered by a 3reefer, maybe Matt would know....), to get rid of B. pennata and B. halliae. (excuse my spelling by the way I am probably off a letter or two) and that is to raise the magnesium to high levels using a magnesium sulfate product like Kent's Tech M or Epsom Salt. I have never heard of anyone using the Kent's product to slowly raise the magnesium over 1650 that didn't have results for either of those two species. But what species do you have? There are I think 12 in Florida alone, I can id them if you take a snapshot..just a matter of counting the "branches" and seeing how they are arranged.

elysia ornata sea slugs seemed to eat bryopsis pennata and plumosa, i have seen gangs of chitons eat it, but in small groups they are ineffective at controlling it. rudder fish definitely eat it int he wild...other than that most of the time I have heard that someone's snail ate their byropsis

 

Thanks John, I'll hopefully have some pics later tonight. I'm not working with good equipment so it's a chore to get a good clean magnified image with the feathery branches showing.

Kent Tech M is on the way, also.

 

Didn't work for Tangster and I on our pennata. In fact, nothing did. We have a few threads about our battle with it. Let me see if I can dig them up.

 

might as well go with the sure bet. I know of some people that got results with Epsom, but a few said it did nothing. I never did see what species they had though....The nerd of all this just hit me....trying to collect different pictures of algae and what not. Time for a 3reef break, see you all in an hour or so.

 

shoot me that link when you can...

 

http://www.3reef.com/forums/algae/bryopsis-control-51891.html
http://www.3reef.com/forums/algae/bryopsys-47242.html

 

I had this algae and tried everything suggested to me. I tried raising the Mg, I had it over 2000ppm for about a month, did nothing, nothing would eat it, I cut back feedings, added a GFO reactor, cut back on my lighting, nothing. However, there is hope. I thought of what is in my opinion a creative solution. All I did was trim the Bryopsis a little, then cover it with epoxy, like the stuff you use to glue rocks together. Now the trimming will cause new patches to pop up, just cover them with epoxy too. When I did this, I did it during a water change to try to suck out as much of the algae as I could. Now, your tank will look bad with epoxy spots all over it, but after about 2 months, I took the epoxy off using a knife to pop it off the rock and it was gone. I did this about a year ago, and no bryopsis. That has been the only sure fire method I have found to kill it all off without taking your tank down, or rock out.

Now, another method I used to combat smaller patches on rocks that were easily removable is to create a bleach/water solution and using a Q-tip, apply that solution to the bryopsis. Make sure to get it really good or it will grow back. This may take a few applications as it can grow back, as happened to me. I then dipped the rock in some fresh salt water to rinse off any bleach left over and put it back in the tank. Fast and easy. I also added some chlorine neutralizer as an added precaution.

Both of these methods worked great for me with no side affects. They may seem drastic, but when you have tried everything, and if nothing else worked, this will. Good luck.

 

We discuss it on page 12 of our tank thread as well:

http://www.3reef.com/forums/show-of...up-running-downgraded-90-gallon-37609-13.html

If I remember correctly, we had just started seeing some improvement when the 180 sprung a leak and we had to break it down. I think that the thing that finally got it to stop growing was that Tangster started to grow it in the refugium (on purpose). That being said, there is no sign of it in the 90 gallon even though we put most of the rock and all of the coral that was in the 180 into the 90.