Bryopsis Cure: My Battle With Bryopsis Using Fluconazole

[Susan Edwards]

no carbon or purigen etc. Gfo is okay

 

[Reefltx]

no carbon or purigen etc. Gfo is okay

Carbon as in nopox, vodka?
I'm not running any carbon or GFO

 

[Susan Edwards]

ah, no carbon as in media! I did nopox and vibrant during treatment. I've stopped both for a bit as PO4 has bottomed out

 

[ksanfranfan]

My first R2R post!

I'm in the middle of the raised magnesium via Tech M treatment and am not seeing much change. I've pulled snails for QT as I see them od'd on the sandbed. I think at this point, I may let my mag drop naturally and move on to the Fluconazole treatment.
Anyone know when Tech M stopped working? Did they change their product? I'm disappointed since I've purchased 7 gallons of that overpriced epson salts.... (I'm not salty or anything :-D)

I'm concerned that I'm quite terrible at estimating my rock displacement. I have a 300g tank, no idea how much weight or volume of rock, but hoping that my sump/fuge makes up for that. I've been dosing based on 300g of water volume and according to the reef chem calc, it's not too far off.

Congrats on your first R2R post. Unfortunately Tech M does not have the same affect on bryopsis as it used to. Kent began a new process for Tech M years ago and the ingredients were changed.
Whatever it was in the previous process and ingredients, it was believed that there was an impurity of the process or ingredients that killed bryopsis.

 

[ksanfranfan]

Update!! Its day 2 officially. I was thinking ok everything looks good until I checked the refugium. I've had a Lynkia starfish for 2 years and when I took a flashlight to look this is what i found. He's pretty good sized and as notated from day 1 the starfish definitely seemed irritated.
R.I.P big blue.
I also noticed some of this xinia looks to be affected as well. Im not a big fan of it anyways so I guess chalk it up to collateral damage. I'll keep noting any other examples as they come up, hopefully not anymore from this point forward.

FWIW if anyone wants to know about any other issues that arise I will be documenting it in my thread. I have everything you can think of in that system. I think the pictures are too graphic so I didn't attach it here.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/bryopsis-fluconazole-carlos-dangers-journey-to-paradise.318506/

I just think anyone who places starfish in their heart of hearts should seriously place their little starfish friends in another tank. I wonder as well if this affects the tiny little astria starfish in a similar manner. I should be so lucky. Its always the things "pests" you want gone that always stick around no matter what you put in your tank!

I'm not sure if other people have had lynkias so it would be interesting to see if they did, how did they fair during the treatment. It gets me thinking, I haven't seen my serpents since I dosed the tank?

So what do you think, coincidence or not? If it were me I'd remove them prior to treatment.

Hate to hear you loss your lynkia, one of my favorite starfish. It could have been a coincidence, then again probably not. This treatment has only been introduced since the beginning of this year so there are still a lot of unknowns about its affects on marine life.
Some have posted a few losses of tank inhabitants in this thread during their treatment. Some of those that posted losses also couldn't 100 percent verify it was fluconazole due to other treatments being used in conjunction.
In your case being that fluconazole is the only change made it's probably not a coincidence.
I have asterina and small brittle starfish in both of my tanks that were treated. Fluconazole didn't have any affect on them.
Hopefully your other serpents will be ok.

 

[ksanfranfan]

Is it okay to continue carbon dosing with this stuff?

I just got my flucon in, shipping was extremely fast.

Yes, you can continue carbon dosing. Carbon dosing shouldn't have any effect on the medication.

 

[Aj.]

Algae is 100% gone!!! 2 weeks post treatment. Is anyone else's protein skimmer skimmate not smelling like absolute death anymore? Mine smells like dead plants and meds.

 

[liveround69]

Yay! the Flucon killed it in less than 14 days for me. I turned on the skimmer @ day 10 and did a water change on day 12. Looks great compared to before. It even knocked out a lot of the weird thick hair algae that happened to come in with the bryopsis on a cheap frag of palys 2 years ago. Taught me a major lesson about quarantining before adding to the display tank.

day 1 after a water change and hydrogen peroxide bath to thin out the population of bryopsis, hair algae etc. Getting ready to dose Flucon.

Algae dying day 6. Inverts, coral and fish doing fine at this point.

Day 10 and i am going to turn on the skimmer. Too much cyano on the glass from all the algae dying.

I also am going to scrub out the sump to make sure there isnt much of a chance for it to come back again.

Saying goodbye to a 2 year fight with bryopsis!!!!!!!
Thanks to all those who pioneered this process. IT WORKS !!!

 

[Susan Edwards]

@liveround69 congrats. Got most of mine or else I have gha left so am doing a second round this week. After chemiclean to rid the cyano

 

[liveround69]

Thanks Susan Edwards. I will retreat if i start seeing the algae reappearing. As for now I may be close to having it under control. The bonus was I didnt lose any fish, coral or inverts which of course was most important to me since i have some nice inhabitants like a 3 year old Duncanopsis which has about 30 heads, 2 breeding Maroon Clowns which bryopsis kept disrupting their cycle, a skunk cleaner shrimp, Melanurus Wrasse, Six Line Wrasse and numerous snails.

As for the Vibrant and other things such as Chemipure. I have yet to try them. Does the vibrant help very much?

 

[Staggs]

ah, no carbon as in media! I did nopox and vibrant during treatment. I've stopped both for a bit as PO4 has bottomed out

Susan, I haven't been running nopox because my skimmer has been off. Did you start running it after you brought your skimmer back online? I'm 10 days in and still haven't turned my skimmer on since I'm not seeing any issues. I'm treating for GHA, only thing i've been running was a fresh batch of gfo.

 

[Reefltx]

Susan, I haven't been running nopox because my skimmer has been off. Did you start running it after you brought your skimmer back online? I'm 10 days in and still haven't turned my skimmer on since I'm not seeing any issues. I'm treating for GHA, only thing i've been running was a fresh batch of gfo.

I turned off my nopox dosing and left the skimmer on but turned all the way down where the bubbles break at 1/2 the skimmers body. Yet, somehow skimmate build up enough to push some in the collection cup.

 

[Susan Edwards]

@Staggs, I ran nopox and vibrant both while treating. I left my skimmer off for 9 days. No ill effects until cyano reared its ugly, warty head which I'm treating now before I do a second round of flucon
@liveround69 I can't say I saw a lot of progress with either nopox or vibrant but then again, my problem was with bryopsis more than the other algaes. With my PO4 dropping I've stopped both to see what my tank does. Still high nitrates but there is yet a lot of die off in my tank.

I should do a wc tonight for the chemiclean but am going to leave it until Thur for some extra time. No fish and I hvae an airstone in addition to the returns and wavemakers. Won't be here tomorrow unless I do tomorrow night.

 

[Staggs]

@Susan Edwards Thanks for the info, I decided not to keep running nopox because you are suppose to use the skimmer to export it. I was going to open a question and ask if anyone still continued to dose it when I first started my treatment but decided not to. I plan on turning my skimmer on Friday evening, and then doing a 20% water change on Sunday.....then do another round. It's taken out 90% but I want to make sure the roots are good and dead on the gha.

 

[Susan Edwards]

@Staggs Good idea. I'm starting round 2 tomorrow after my wc.

 

[xilez]

I am starting to notice this appearing in my tank, and I'd like to get ahead of it while I can. Total water volume is about 14 gallons

If I was to order from: https://www.payless-petproducts.com/fluconazole200.html

How many capsules should I insert?

So glad I found this thread!!!

 

[Reefltx]

I am starting to notice this appearing in my tank, and I'd like to get ahead of it while I can. Total water volume is about 14 gallons

If I was to order from: https://www.payless-petproducts.com/fluconazole200.html

How many capsules should I insert?

So glad I found this thread!!!

1 and a half would work.
It's 200mg per capsule and you only need 20mg per gallon.


I'm on day 3 and starting to noticed the tips of the algae is turning white. Po4 increased to .04ppm from 0ppm, no3 no change at .5-1ppm.

 

[liveround69]

14 gallons x 20 mg per gallon = 280 mg and since they come in a 200mg capsules you would dose 1 and 1/2 . It would be about 300mg since its impossible to get exact but I wouldnt worry about the slight overage. Its only going to seal the deal on the bryopsis. I did same and didnt lose any creatures or corals.

 

[paal]

Started dosing Fluco yesterday.

My problem is probably not bryopsis (some kind of turf algae??)

I got my problem-algae from two sps frag plugs in October last year. Since then, it has spread to the entire tank; various patches all over (probably floating particles after I manually remove it during my weekly water changes)

When I received the algae, I figured it would be a snack for the tangs/foxface I was waiting to receive, but neither cares about the stuff. I was lazy and let it spread.
I later tried Vibrant, but it did not seem to have an affect on this algae.

The two pics below show how much the stuff grows in 12 days. The first pic was taken after I had done a quick manual removal to all the patches in my tank.
Shorty after picture #2 I did a new manual removal (I was quite thorough and removed a lot more that time) and then dosed Fluco. (20mg/gallon)

(No other visible algae in tank other than film algae)



Pic1 - after a quick manual removal:



Pic2 - 12 days later:

 

[Haifisch]

You have giving me new hope for my 140g reef/algea tank. Finally found this product inline. Can't wait till it arrives. I see some new corals in its future. Thank you for sharing. Been fighting this nightmare for over a year now. Thanks to you.