Bryopsis Control in my tank.

The bryopsis is taking a stronger foot hold even with manual removal and regimented waterchanges of 15% every other day. I ordered up some tech M and will document the tanks progress here for others to follow along and learn from.





As a background what my tank runs. I run NP balls for chemical filtration in regards to bacteria and dose a minimal amount of vodka a day ( 4ML so about 1 ml per 25 gallons) I run a reef octopus skimmer 24/7 which removes about three gallons of skimmate a week.


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Stock:


Corals: All corals that can be removed will be. That is, All but a couple colony of zoas.


Fish: OSF, pair of cardnals (kauderni), Starry Blenny, Green Mandarin, Yellow Clown Goby, Coral Beauty Angel, Two yellow tail Damsels, One black and white Chromis


Inverts: Coral banded shrimp, Tiger stirped Pistol shrimp, Blood red shrimp strawberry crab Possibly one emerald crab. Various snails nassarius ~8 Turbo 2 astrea ~3 very large 2 small.


All specimens are in great health no noticable signs of stress. all are very thick well fed and active. The Chromis runs the tank.


There is also a great deal of life in the rock and sump/refugium.


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(Pics of before manual removal)


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There are reports that Bryopsis is very aggressive to multiple and attach when knocked lose. My manual removal method is going to include combing the sand/substrate, manual removal from the roskwork, as well as brushing down the areas with a sticc bristle brush, knocking the bryopsis loose. Because we are going to chemcally treat the water, I dont feel that knocking it loose is going to cause massive spread, mainly because we will be killing it internally by poisinging it.


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(After manual removal.)


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Approach/Method:


From across the world we see ranges from 1300-2100, and maintained from 1 week to 60 days. For our control I will raise the MG to 1700, and hold it there until the duration of July, roughly a month and half.





Baseline:


I will get a Mg reading tonight, and begin dosing once the tech M comes in and keep this updated.

 

Hence the double carbon dosing. Removal of phosphates and nitrates is critical when trying to control an nuisance algae. By removing all possible the excess nutrients, along with water changes as the first option of treatment. with no changes in the systems growth rate of Bryopsis the vodka will be stopped with the treatment of Tech M.

 

Just trying to find an alternate to get rid of the stuff! First time in 24 years I have seen Bryopsis in my own tank.... Just figured there may be alternatives.

I have seen the emerald crabs picking at it, but certainly not eating it actively. and the complete nutrient export is not working at all.... Its a magical machine this algae.

 

Mg base line is at 1240. Will post pics of the before before I start pulling stuff out.

 

Added roughly 130 ml of twch m this morning. Should raise tank levels by 40 ppm. Will get a new base line.
Because I cannot edit the original I will go ahead and build from here.
Pre manual removal.

As you can see there is a rather serious issue. I have a weekle change regiment and my filter bags are changed twice a week. Yhis amount took only about two weeks to spread from a couple patches to this infestation.
Again, I am both dosing tech m along with manual removal. The common consensus is to not touch bryopsis without siphoning or using some type of capture method. I am not. most also suggest to not touch the stuff while dosing. I am. My thought line is this. The spread is not going to matyer because we are chemically removing the specimen. As far as manual removal. Breaking apart the tissue of the algae is going to cause the algae to spebd time regrowing itself ina regerneration proccess which is more stressful for plants than typical growth. This takes more enegery and exposes the iner plabt wall and tissues to the tech m. The extra energy is going to cause thw algae to take in more nutrie ts from the water to rwgeneratw. Which will increase the tech m uptake as well.
I removed manually a rough metric ton of algae abd brushed the rest of what I could reach with a medium bristle tooth brush. I did note that because of the density of the algae it held a large amount of detritus within Its base rooting area effectivly making itself a nutrient facoty. Which furthers growth... clever girl...
Coral base line.
These are thw corals which will remain in the tank on day 1 of treatment

While young all the corals ar re healthy.
More details on the levels I raised it today to come.

 

Ran some calculations on Calcium magnesium and alk. Looks like I can go ahead and raise my MG up by about 260 units a day without causing severe fluctuations. Raised mg up to 1612 this evening.

 

Beginning of day 4. I have the Mg raised and holding at just under 1800. ( A little higher than I wanted but lower than dangerous levels.

As stated above, inverts look to be a little sluggish, my coral banded bastard shrimp is a little twitchy and my blood shrimp is not dancing as much. Hermit crabs are congregating in clumps in certain areas.

SPS is beginning to bleach a bit, but no tissue loss. This is an over all uniform bleaching not tip down but the whole coral looks paler.

Zoa and Paly are also bleaching, the tentacles on my pallys that cannot be removed are a lighter shade than they were before the test. And the zoas which were a bright green are now a lighter yellow green in the tentacles. Both sets do not look stressed in any other way. Both are fully extended and taking feedings just fine ( the zoas meh)

RBTA was retracted and withered last night and I checked on how solid his hold on the rock was. It was solid... But this morning he is bright bubbled and extended with no lasting damage.

I was able to brush off more Bryopsis last night, the tissue looked to more wither and disintegrate than pull out like previously. and the areas exposed to more light looked to have the worst stages of die off.

Live stock is all happy and healthy, I may to maybe need to replace the pod life in the sump after this, and I did remove the chaeto I had in the Remote fuge as parts looked to be bleaching out a bit (could have been caused by tech M but also could have been not enough flow and rotation in the fuge as the chaeto was getting pretty big for that tank)

 

Week1:

Tank is stable, MG levels holding at 1720.

I have done two clean ups in the week both with a soft bristle tooth brush. Bryopsis from any spot that is in direct light is near gone, most of the stuff not in direct light seem to be a little more hardy.

Brushing down seems to work the best for removal and there is no new growth or regrowth that I can notice. The substrate is no longer growing clumps and most of the rock is clearing up very well.

I am going to kick the MG up to1800 for the second week and stick there for a bit to see.

Livestock: as noted before, Paly/Zoa are still bleaching out, however are still feeding and actively opening and or closing. The strawberry short cake has since died, or is on its last leg. Bleaching began within the first few days, and tissue loss (no necrosis just sloughing) I am going to chock this up the the intense increase in MG rather than the tech M or MG itself. While my tank can sustain a 200+ increase without effecting PH , the corals cannot, and should be acclimated at a rate closer to 10-20 PPT MG...

Live and learn.

Once the 75 is clean I am going to go ahead and upgrade straight away to a 90, which should give a little wiggle room for the MG to come down with the 15 gallon increase right off the bat. As well as treat out some of the other tanks in the house to prevent cross contamination.


As a reference my 75 took an entire 64 OZ bottle of Tech M.

On a side side note, I think Bryopsis in a controlled remote tank with advanced filtration and a UV A/B return to the refugium/sump would make an extremely functional water filter in all honesty. I think I may work on that...