Who/what eats bryopsis?

[Jan]

Gotta love this hobby. Just when I think I've got a handle on it...now I've got Bryopsis. So far I only "see" it on one piece of coral. what kills this stuff?

Edited August 19, 2009 by Jan

[John]

Found this:

 

http://www.reefland.com/forum/reef-archive...e-bryopsis.html

 

Hope it helps, at least states some options, but I've never dealt with it personally.

[Highland Reefer]

Bryopsis is a tough one. It is a member of the siphoning algae which can be quite difficult to control. Plus it has special healing powers when fragmented which make it tougher to control. Many hobbyists report good control by elevating their Magnesium levels with Tech M to around 1500 ppm.

 

Personally, I would sacrifice the rock it is on and if you want to keep that rock, I would soak it several times in a bleach solution to kill it.

[jamesbuf]

Dose the Kent Magnesium. I know of many people who have used that product and eliminated their briopsis problem. Evidently there is some ingredient inside that briopsis HATES!!! When you dose it, use a turkey baster and squirt it on the briopsis. I never used it personally, but I know of a few people on here and on RC that have used it with great success. There's a long thread about it over on RC too.

 

I had success with a gold-heart Rabbitfish. Took maybe a month or so to clear it out. Didn't really do anything else. Some rabbitfish aquire a taste for it, some don't.

[Nate]

Dose the Kent Magnesium. I know of many people who have used that product and eliminated their briopsis problem. Evidently there is some ingredient inside that briopsis HATES!!! When you dose it, use a turkey baster and squirt it on the briopsis. I never used it personally, but I know of a few people on here and on RC that have used it with great success. There's a long thread about it over on RC too.

 

I had success with a gold-heart Rabbitfish. Took maybe a month or so to clear it out. Didn't really do anything else. Some rabbitfish aquire a taste for it, some don't.

 

+1

 

I used Kent Tech M on my frag tank when I had a break out. I raised my levels to around 1900ppm and held it there for about 2 weeks. The bryopsis dies of fairly quickly doing this method...this is also a good way to battle hair algae as well. I would also recommend some sort of rabbit fish, preferably a foxface. They will eat pretty much anything that is green. Good luck!

Edited August 19, 2009 by Nate

[Jan]

Gotta love this hobby. Just when I think I've got a handle on it...now I've got Bryopsis. So far I only "see" it on one piece of coral. what kills this stuff?

 

 

Once again thank you, thank you, thank you fellow reefers for sharing you knowledge and experience. I'll get the Kent M...I'm also looking at a sea urchin but i dont want to spend the money on shipping. Anyone want to split the shipping from Blue zoo?

[zygote2k]

I'm currently battling the Bryopsis in the SPS tank. This stuff grows very quickly and fragments easier than montipora. Kent M is dosed daily and the current mag level is 1625 as of last friday. When the mag got above 1400, the bryopsis started receding. I expect it all to be gone this friday and the mag level to be around 1700. It has taken nearly 1/2 gallon to do this, so I recommend buying in bulk.

Skip the urchin and the foxface/rabbitfish- this one can be battled with chemicals successfully.

[davelin315]

Now that is really neat - I never knew about using magnesium levels to battle bryopsis. I was going to post when this came up that you needed to do a lot of manual removal and siphoning of the bryopsis as really, there's not a lot that eats it, but this magnesium treatment sounds cool. I wonder, though, will this have any adverse effects on the rest of the tank? If the bryopsis has not spread, and I know that if left undisturbed it doesn't necessarily spread that prolifically, at least in my experiences with it, would it be safer to simply remove the offending piece of rock and treat it separately and really hit it with a ton of magnesium?

[Jan]

It wasn't on a rock. It was on an open brain skeleton that had several stalks of Xenia elongata attached to it. I took all the Xenia off of it last night and took the coral skeleton out of the tank. I'd purchased an open brain from a LFS that appears to have had the bryopsis on it. I cut the small section off. It was about the size of a clove of garlic. The brain was receding in that area. Did the bryopsis cause it to recede? There was also some getting tangled in the branches og my gorgonian so i wondered where it could be coming from. I've discovered that there are clumps of it in my overflow. So I'm shutting everything off and scraping it all out, that's if i don't fall in because I'm so darn short, and letting it all get caguht in a filter sock. I'm also getting the Kent M.

[CHUBAKAH]

Not that you are wanting to go this route, but using the 3 key ingredients in the Brightwell Neozeo system [Zeo media, MB7, and Biofuel] will kill it off completely, and keep the nutrient levels in your setup at undetectable levels.

 

Send me a PM if you would like more info.

[dshnarw]

Now that is really neat - I never knew about using magnesium levels to battle bryopsis. I was going to post when this came up that you needed to do a lot of manual removal and siphoning of the bryopsis as really, there's not a lot that eats it, but this magnesium treatment sounds cool. I wonder, though, will this have any adverse effects on the rest of the tank? If the bryopsis has not spread, and I know that if left undisturbed it doesn't necessarily spread that prolifically, at least in my experiences with it, would it be safer to simply remove the offending piece of rock and treat it separately and really hit it with a ton of magnesium?

 

Dave, my experience is that you won't see adverse reactions from the rest of the tank as long as you don't go ultra high on the Mg dosing. A slow increase to around 1500-1550 is sufficient to kill of the bryopsis, provided you leave it there for a couple of weeks, and I've never seen ill effects in any of the other livestock I had, with the exception of a few ornamental algaes that neither grew nor receded. Holding Mg above 1500 was the only method besides feeding less that I found effective in preventing bryopsis growth when I had my 30 breeder anemone tank...and less food was not an option.

[paul b]

As to the original question as to what eats it, Lettuce slugs eat it. Well they don't actually eat it, they more like suck the juices out and the stuff turns into snot. I wrote an article about them years ago.

http://www.breedersregistry.org/Articles/b...PoweredSlug.htm

[Jan]

As to the original question as to what eats it, Lettuce slugs eat it. Well they don't actually eat it, they more like suck the juices out and the stuff turns into snot. I wrote an article about them years ago.

http://www.breedersregistry.org/Articles/b...PoweredSlug.htm

 

Thank you Paul. What happens to these guys after they eat the bryopsis?

[cabrego]

I also had good luck with Kent M magnesium supplement to battle my bryopsis. If it is just on a small skeleton, I would just remove it if possible and maybe bleach it.

 

I had a bad case growing along my foam wall near the top. When I did a water change, I dose with the kent Mg directly on the algae when the water was low, so the algae received a direct hit. Killed the stubborn stuff very quick! other stuff took a bit longer.

 

no ill effect observed, I raised about 100 ppm per day. I have also read that non kent Mg doses were not successful but I do not have expereience with those.

[paul b]

Thank you Paul. What happens to these guys after they eat the bryopsis?

 

Read the article I wrote, after they eat the bryopsis they become solar powered and incorporate the chloroplasts from the bryopsis into their tissues and live the rest of their life on just light. Mine lived about 18 months and I had over 100 of them

[Jan]

Tuxedo Urchins eat Bryopsis and other algae. After reading everyones posts, thanks everyone, and searching online for a cure I found that there are 2 things that will get rid of Bryopsis; dosing with Kent M and Tuxedo aka Royal urchins.

 

I pulled as much of the bryopsis as I could out of the overflow and off of my LR. I increased my magnesium to 1550 and I added a Tuxedo aka Royal Urchin to the tank. The patches of bryopsis have started to shrink. I suspect it's from the Kent M. Even better than that was the tuxedo Urchin I purchased at BRK. It mowed right through the Bryopsis.

 

Gotta love this hobby. Just when I think I've got a handle on it...now I've got Bryopsis. So far I only "see" it on one piece of coral. what kills this stuff?

[sen5241b]

I've had a samll amount of Bryopsis even though my nitrates and phophates are at zero. It only grows on one very pourous rock. Detritus gets stuck in the holes on the rock and algae grows off of that. It grows very slowly. I'll try Kent M but should I first try diggin it out of the rock and siphoning off the loose bryopsis (followed by a 40% change out)???

[Jan]

I had clumps of patches in my overflow. I pulled it all out manually. So wherever you can take it off manually, you should, and make sure you take it out of the tank. A little bit of that stuff attaches and starts to grow fast. I increased my water changes. I also got a tuxedo urchin at BRK and it mowed through the small patches of bryopsis I had on a rock. I highly recommend tuxedo urchins for bryopsis. They're slow movers so i placed mine right on a patch of bryopsis and it mowed right through the stuff. So far the urchin hasn't knocked anything over. It's really slow too, so I just physically move it to the next patch of algae. I dion't have a lot of bryopsis. Small patches here and there so I was concerened about what would happene after the bryopsis was all gone. These urchins eat all kinds of algae and they'll also eat Nori.

 

 

I've had a samll amount of Bryopsis even though my nitrates and phophates are at zero. It only grows on one very pourous rock. Detritus gets stuck in the holes on the rock and algae grows off of that. It grows very slowly. I'll try Kent M but should I first try diggin it out of the rock and siphoning off the loose bryopsis (followed by a 40% change out)???

[El Camaron]

Jan to get rid of bryopsis you have to increase your magnesium by at least 1800 ppm, of course you have to do it slowly. i was dosing two caps full in my tank at one point and once i started dosing that much the bryopsis diminished and its now pretty much all gone, every once in a while i get a bit of it but all i do is raise MG and walla.

[Jan]

Jan to get rid of bryopsis you have to increase your magnesium by at least 1800 ppm, of course you have to do it slowly. i was dosing two caps full in my tank at one point and once i started dosing that much the bryopsis diminished and its now pretty much all gone, every once in a while i get a bit of it but all i do is raise MG and walla.

 

I increased magnesium too to 1550 and it helped. didn;t know i could inscrease it more. The tuxedo urchin also helped. It eats bryopsis. Thanks!

J

[Jan]

You are absolutly right about 1800 ppm. I was wrong when I said 1500 ppm. My apologies.

 

Jan to get rid of bryopsis you have to increase your magnesium by at least 1800 ppm, of course you have to do it slowly. i was dosing two caps full in my tank at one point and once i started dosing that much the bryopsis diminished and its now pretty much all gone, every once in a while i get a bit of it but all i do is raise MG and walla.