Killing Bryopsis with Elevated Levels of Magnesium

[Guest Bemmer]

There are some very interesting threads going in RC about killing bryopsis with elevated levels of Magnesium. At Mg levels of 1500-1600 byropsis has died off. I was wondering if anyone on WAMAS has tried it. I am seriously thinking of doing this since I am battling with the stuff again.

 

Check out the links...

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...um+and+bryopsis

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...um+and+bryopsis

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...um+and+bryopsis

Edited May 9, 2007 by Bemmer

[extreme_tooth_decay]

There are some very interesting threads going in RC about killing bryopsis with elevated levels of Magnesium. At Mg levels of 1500-1600 byropsis has died off. I was wondering if anyone on WAMAS has tried it. I am seriously thinking of doing this since I am battling with the stuff again.

 

Check out the links...

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...um+and+bryopsis

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...um+and+bryopsis

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...um+and+bryopsis

 

 

 

Interesting stuff. Wish I would have known about this a couple months ago when I was

battling the junk.

 

tim

[jason the filter freak]

Isn't this another case of battle the problem but not the over all cause?

[Guest Bemmer]

Isn't this another case of battle the problem but not the over all cause?

 

Well, to be honest, I am still trying to find the overall cause. I have a media reactor loaded with carbon and phosar (phosphate remover). I am now doing weekly water changes of 40g, building my snail population back up and have backed off on my lighting period. I need to kill down the stuff so the snails can do the rest.

[Rascal]

I haven't read the reef frontiers thread, but it looks like no one on RC has done this for more than a week. If so then it's still too early to tell what the long term effects might be. IMO the short-term effects on some tanks don't seem all that promissing. Snails and sea cucumbers shocked, some bleaching of leathers, zoas, and BTAs.

 

The bleaching was my concern upon reading the description / theory of how this works -- by dramatically increasing the CO2 consumption and O2 production of chloroplasts. Seems awfully similar to the sort of thing that causes corals to expel their zooxanthella, doesn't it?

 

I agree with the comments of Spracklcat in the 2nd thread. If you have algae growing, you have phosphates.

 

At the very least, I would wait for more long term results before trying this out.

 

How much Phosar are you using? Is it the regular Phosar or the Phosar HC? How often are you changing it out? Was there any effect at all on the bryopsis when you first started using it?

Edited May 9, 2007 by Rascal

[tonkadawg]

maybe I missed it, but how long should you keep your mg elevated above 1500?

[dandy7200]

There is another long thread over there that discuss turning off all lighting for 3 days and then tweese and syphon it out in it's weakened state. Corals and such are used to the darkness in nature when it storms so thats no problem.

 

How much Phosar are you running?

[lanman]

Well, to be honest, I am still trying to find the overall cause. I have a media reactor loaded with carbon and phosar (phosphate remover). I am now doing weekly water changes of 40g, building my snail population back up and have backed off on my lighting period. I need to kill down the stuff so the snails can do the rest.

Mine mostly died out naturally - I got brown algae instead... and a tiny patch of cyano that refuses to go away. But while moving rock last night from 45-->58, I found a small patch of it that had been between rocks. I put my turbo snail on it - and now there's just a fingernail size patch left. I'll hunt him down again this evening, or sic my queen conch on it. Both seem to enjoy the stuff. In fact, if you can mow it short, the little pointy-hat snails will take care of it - but they don't like it long. The queen conch is best at the longer stuff. Now that I'm halfway moved into the 58, and it looks SO nice and clean and pristine - I'll probably get some hellacious bryopsis or bubble algae infestation. It's not reefer madness - it's reefer masochism.

 

bob

[Guest Bemmer]

There is another long thread over there that discuss turning off all lighting for 3 days and then tweese and syphon it out in it's weakened state. Corals and such are used to the darkness in nature when it storms so thats no problem.

 

How much Phosar are you running?

 

I have not tried lights out for three days. Perhaps that an option.

 

I will be changing out my carbon and Phosar when you come on Monday and up the amount of Phosar in my media reactor to about 1 1/2-2 cups and see how that works.

 

So far, not getting a "thumbs up" on the Magnesium idea. Will wait and see a littl while longer.

[dandy7200]

Phosar at full strength is 1 cup/150 gallons (I measured this on a digital gram scale). So if you are running less than 1.5 cups now on a 450 system you are at less than 1/2 strength. I believe we started running this same media on roughly the same date. My first fill I used 1/2 strength and changed it after 3 weeks because I felt it was not doing a good enough job or the media was "full". I just changed out the media and raised the dose to 3/4 strength a couple days ago and plan on opening up the reactor and topping it off to get to full strength in another day or two. I have not noticed a drop in alkalinity with this product like when I used to run ROWA. Doesn't mean it didn't happen only that if it did it was insignificant enough that it didn't matter.

 

The general rule for phos medias is to be cautious. I don't want anyone to read the above statement and think for a second that I think otherwise. Just like everything else in this hobby though there is a learning curve and once you understand it you can be "less cautious".

[extreme_tooth_decay]

Isn't this another case of battle the problem but not the over all cause?

 

 

Personally, I don't think so. I didn't have elevated nutrtient levels before my

infestation, I introduced some on some LR, and then it took off. No amount of water

changing helped at that point. The problem in my case wass that it wass introduced,

not that I had water quality issues.

 

Once I got it all out, it hasn't come back. I used a combination of siphoning,

scrubbing, more clean up crew, and a Kole tang. I had a pretty bad infestation

that took off after I introduced it, but its been totally gone for a while.

 

I have started running Phosar, but that hasnt resulted in any change in my water

params (phosphates were 0 before phosar, and 0 after). I know some folks

think that the reason for the 0 phosphate reading is the algae eats it all up before

it can be measured...I don't really buy that argument in the case of a big infestation.

 

I saw some folks on RC saying the same thing (that they just couldn't see

how nutrients was the problem).

 

So, for me, this solution sounds perfect. It's a way to get rid of it, once it's gone,

I don't think it'll come back.

 

 

tim

[davelin315]

If you're going with lights off, you need to do more than 3 days, at least in my experience with other nuisance algaes. The best bet is to do a week and let it die off, siphon and water change, then bring the lights back. Honestly, even then that's probably not enough. Algae is tough, especially bryopsis, and I believe that it all reproduces with spores so you're going to have an incredibly hard time getting rid of them since they're built to withstand everything.

[Rascal]

Personally, I don't think so. I didn't have elevated nutrtient levels before my

infestation, I introduced some on some LR, and then it took off. No amount of water

changing helped at that point. The problem in my case wass that it wass introduced,

not that I had water quality issues.

 

Once I got it all out, it hasn't come back. I used a combination of siphoning,

scrubbing, more clean up crew, and a Kole tang. I had a pretty bad infestation

that took off after I introduced it, but its been totally gone for a while.

 

I have started running Phosar, but that hasnt resulted in any change in my water

params (phosphates were 0 before phosar, and 0 after). I know some folks

think that the reason for the 0 phosphate reading is the algae eats it all up before

it can be measured...I don't really buy that argument in the case of a big infestation.

 

I saw some folks on RC saying the same thing (that they just couldn't see

how nutrients was the problem).

 

So, for me, this solution sounds perfect. It's a way to get rid of it, once it's gone,

I don't think it'll come back.

tim

 

Even if excessively high nutrients aren't the initial or root cause of a nuisance algae outbreak, I still think lowering them even further is the most important part of an effective solution. It may be that there is a difference between acceptable nitrate/phosphate levels in a tank without nuisance algae and what those levels should be in a tank that already has some nuisance algae. For example, even if you attain nsw levels of nitrate and phosphate, both corals and algae will thrive. On a healthy reef, the algae is kept in check by an abundance of herbivores. So if there is an outbreak of a particular strain of algae and it takes over a tiny portion - like 2' x 10' - on a reef, it will quickly be mowed down by the next large school of tangs that cruises by. But how many of us have 50-100 tangs stopping by our little sections of the ocean for a visit on a regular basis? And if we did, they would quickly release most of the nutrients in the algae back into the water in the form of poop, without the benefit of the 100% water change every 2-3 seconds that occurs on a similarly sized section of the reef.

 

The problems with test kits for phosphate, IMO, are not only that they don't always measure all types of phosphates, but that some strains of algae seem perfectly capable of thriving at levels below that which can be detected by the test kits (at least by any that I can afford).

 

As for the RC posts saying that nutrients weren't the issue, the ones I saw based that conclusion on the fact that the bryopsis was still growing even though there was chaeto growing as well, and the bryopsis seems to be outcompeting the chaeto. To me all that means is that, under the particular circumstances present in that tank, bryopsis is outcompeting chaeto.

 

In the end, I think you are right. If your nutrients aren't high (by nsw standards), you practice good husbandry, and you have sufficient # and type of herbivores in your tank (all of which I'm sure are true in Bemmer's case), once the algae is gone it probably won't return. The trick of course is getting it gone in the first place. Personally, I favor extreme phosphate removal coupled with manual removal of the die off, because that is what worked for me and makes the most sense to me. I used 1000 ml on a 150 gallon, run through 2 reactors inline, with 500 ml changed out each week until the infestation was gone, now once a month at best to keep things in check. But as Dan advised, I am very, very careful with how I do this.

Edited May 10, 2007 by Rascal

[Black Mammoth]

Very interesting. I'm still having some problems, but my hair algae went nuts recently. I talked to Sean at F&F and he got me 5 HUGE crabs for my 90. They've been mowing that stuff down like crazy. They haven't destroyed everything yet, but they've done a pretty good job. You may want to talk to him and see if he can get you the same crabs he got me.

[rooroo]

I read one of those threads. Seems like an interesting theory. I don't think I'd try it in my tank without trying everything else first though.

[YBeNormal]

the little pointy-hat snails will take care of it

 

There you go again, using technical terms.

Edited May 11, 2007 by YBeNormal

[tonkadawg]

There is another long thread over there that discuss turning off all lighting for 3 days and then tweese and syphon it out in it's weakened state. Corals and such are used to the darkness in nature when it storms so thats no problem.

 

 

I saw that thread and decided to do the 3 days of no lights this weekend while I was out of town. Today is the 3rd day and lights will go back on tomorrow for 4 hrs along with a water change. Kind of hard to tell with the lights out, but the tank on a whole is looking a lot better. I didn't really have any serious problems with algea or anything (all though I do have a couple of aptasia that I can't seem to get rid of). I have noticed that there is an increase in skimmate and it is much darker than usual.

[Guest Bemmer]

I saw that thread and decided to do the 3 days of no lights this weekend while I was out of town. Today is the 3rd day and lights will go back on tomorrow for 4 hrs along with a water change. Kind of hard to tell with the lights out, but the tank on a whole is looking a lot better. I didn't really have any serious problems with algea or anything (all though I do have a couple of aptasia that I can't seem to get rid of). I have noticed that there is an increase in skimmate and it is much darker than usual.

 

Did you cover the front of your tank to keep the ambient light out of the tank or just turn off all your overhead lights?

[tonkadawg]

I just turned the ballast for my light off. The tank sits in the kitchen so during the day, some light gets in, but not much.

[Guest Bemmer]

I used up all the Kent Marine Tech-M stuff I had to raise the Mg. I got it up to about 1200. I did not notice any change with the bryopsis but I know that I did not have the Mg elevated high enough. What I did see where my snails start to crawl out of the tank. Weird huh. They would crawl out and then die on the outside edge or side of the tank.

 

I am in the first full day of lights out on my tank. There is an extensive thread on RC about the three days lights off and the success folks have had with it. Mostly to remove cyno, diatoms and stuff like that. Some luck wtih Bryopsis but none with bubble algae. I will keep you all posted.

[Sugar Magnolia]

1200 is actually still on the low side for mag. Normal range should be between 1250-1350 ppm. Sorry to hear you're still dealing with the bryopsis. It really is a royal PITA to get rid of - you know what my solution was.

[tonkadawg]

well just got home, lights have been on for 2 hours after being out for 3 days. PE is great, tank water is crystal clear - hardly and algae growth on the glass. Snails have been working on what's left - pumps and rocks. I want to continue to check things out and observe the tank over the next couple of days, but I think doing this once every month or two is going to become apart of my husbandry.

 

Edit - here are a couple of pics - sorry the tank isn't really that blue. Haven't figured out the camera.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 15, 2007 by tonkadawg