Bryopsis Cure: My Battle With Bryopsis Using Fluconazole

[Susan Edwards]

My corals all did fine. Some didn't open as much. I suspect the skimmer off for 9 days affected the water parameters and I had so much die off that also affected the water quality. It has taken me almost 2 weeks to get all the die off debris out of the tank. You had so much going on without you there to observe, it could be a combo of many things but I doubt from what I've read, it was the flucon itself but the die off of bryopsis.

 

[becks]

Just dosed 200mg per 10g, not sure if I have bryopsis or GHA, maybe both as some looks like GHA others not so much. I scrubbed the rocks with what I could prior to dosing so to remove as much as possible to help give the medication a hand.

 

[ReefBeta]

I have lobophyllia, lots of acans, and a big colony of setosa among my coral and none showed any stress during my flucon treatment. I was at the high end of the recommended dosage for my water volume.

I suspect the ph swings are the #1 cause of your stressed corals, but 8 cubes of frozen a day seems like a LOT of food for 45G of water to me. This raises the question if nutrients are a problem, either too low on the halved feedings, or too high now that the algae is no longer taking up excess.

All of your proposed causes are possibilities, but I suspect those are the most likely culprits. I hope everything pulls through for you.

We all need to keep in mind, particularly if we have a bad infestation, we are removing a lot of biomass from our systems pretty quickly during this process. This biomass is also very aggressive in the uptake of nutrients (why it out-competes so many other things) as well as the release of O2 into the system. We need to remain vigilant in monitoring water parameters and change our husbandry as needed as these changes happen.

I was thinking the die off lead to arised nutrition might be the cause, but NO3 and PO4 test did not show up at all, and I have no other means to measure nutrition beside those

Good point on lower O2 level because of reduced photosynthesis biomass. It also correlated to higher CO2 and lower PH. My daily PH range did drop, from 7.8~8.15 to 7.7~8.1. I'll start doing water change this weekend.

BTW, it's 8 cubes of 3/8" cubes, not the normal 1/2"+ cubes. So it's about 2 "standard" cubes.

 

[Mrx7899]

Just did a treatment it's been a little over a week and all of my bryopsis is dead. But also noticing a couple clusters of wiry algae I have are Turing white and dying. I did nothing else to the tank just added fluconazole so maybe it kills green wiry algae also. Didn't know if this is known or not figured I would post it sorry for crappy phone pics

 

[xilez]

Are most people turning their skimmer off for this, or do you guys run it on super low without a cup so it is still creating microbubbles?

About to dose my tank tonight, thanks!

 

[ksanfranfan]

Are most people turning their skimmer off for this, or do you guys run it on super low without a cup so it is still creating microbubbles?

About to dose my tank tonight, thanks!

Either or. You can turn the skimmer off or keep it running, adjust the water level by turning your valve back so it doesn't produce skimmate into the cup. Keeping the skimmer running but with no skimmate production still allows the water to be aerated without the possibility of removing the medication.
It's still unknown however if the skimmer is removing the medication or had any effect on it when pulling out dissolved organics.
Some people did leave their skimmer running or turned it back on to full production during the treatment.

 

[liveround69]

Just did a treatment it's been a little over a week and all of my bryopsis is dead. But also noticing a couple clusters of wiry algae I have are Turing white and dying. I did nothing else to the tank just added fluconazole so maybe it kills green wiry algae also. Didn't know if this is known or not figured I would post it sorry for crappy phone pics

I too have what you described as the "green wiry algae". Mine died but returned a short time afterwards. I think there was a patch that didnt quite get enough of the med to kill it. So I am treating my tank a 2nd time. Be sure its all dead before you turn on your skimmer.....and Yes a lot of people know Fluconazole kills the green hair algae as well. It just seems to take a bit longer to kill than the bryopsis.

Good Luck

 

[mcarroll]

NO3 = 0.2, PO4 = 0.045

These are the problems for most tanks.....have you been testing regularly on both parameters?

Considering that you're carbon dosing, those levels may as well be zero – not good. Almost surely why your corals are having issues. Definitely ease back or stop the vodka dosing.

Do you have a separate thread for your tank? If not you should make one....PM me a link when you do (or just PM me your tank details). Link your thread here if you want too.

Interestingly, Bryopsis and other more notorious algae also find "starvation" conditions like this favorable. Normal algae that fish and snails can control require a healthy tank and consistently available nutrients.

 

[Acronuts]

Well I'm sad to say that I have a small patch of bryopsis again. Originally there were two places in my reef tank. With the first dose it iradicated both or so I thought.
Things looked great for a month then I couldn't believe my eyes but in the same spot a few strands started to come out.
Fortunately I ordered enough for a second dose in the event I needed to.
I started yesterday after a wc. This time I will wait longer before doing a water change to make sure this thing dois s not come back.
Will post pics for progress.

Let's keep our fingers crossed!!

 

[mskohl]

These pics are roughly day one on top and just a few hours short of 7 days on the bottom. The lighting is different, but you can see the difference. I think I may turn the skimmer back on this week as I approach the 14 day mark.

I'm not sure how long the medicine will stay in the system after a waterchange and with skimming. Afaik, we don't have a way to measure that. I wonder if the residual is enough to keep it at bay. Though, with Acronuts experience, it seems not enough.

 

[Hyperion]

I just tested this on my tank with absolutely positive results. Within 4 days of dosing, the bryopsis completely disappeared I continued with the treatment for 4 days (currently today) and there is no more bryopsis in my tank. I have a pretty SPS dense tank and did not lose any colonies during the treatment, but I did notice that some colonies lost some color (most likely due to increase in nutrients in tank). Aside from that everything else looks great. I will do a water change, start skimming again and add back carbon in the next week. Or should I go ahead and do the water change now since I my tank is bryopsis free?

 

[ksanfranfan]

I just tested this on my tank with absolutely positive results. Within 4 days of dosing, the bryopsis completely disappeared I continued with the treatment for 4 days (currently today) and there is no more bryopsis in my tank. I have a pretty SPS dense tank and did not lose any colonies during the treatment, but I did notice that some colonies lost some color (most likely due to increase in nutrients in tank). Aside from that everything else looks great. I will do a water change, start skimming again and add back carbon in the next week. Or should I go ahead and do the water change now since I my tank is bryopsis free?

That's great to hear. Glad you were able to obtain fast results. Most have just continued the treatment for the full 14 days to ensure that the root system in the rock were also dead as well. Some had to perform water changes and bring skimmers and activated carbon back online before the full 14 day treatment due to deteriorating water parameters and coralhealth.
If you feel that the health of your corals are in jeopardy, I would go ahead and perform a water change and try to get everything back to normal.
If bryopsis reappears you can always start the treatment again. Some have had to do a second treatment for different reasons.

 

[xilez]

Starting to see some of the bryo dissapere on day 6, still have some hanging around. Would it be ok to help aid in the destruction of them by rubbing them with a tooth brush?

 

[becks]

My tank is almost clear, after a few days it really started to die off and my tank is almost clear completly with the remaining algae white in colour which is slowly being eaten by inverts or failing off.

My skimmer was left on and the skimmate is black in colour or maybe really dark green. I have some cyano take over which maybe from the nutrient increase and I'm going to siphon it up today and change my GFO in the reactor

Snails, shrimp and corals all fine and if anything my montiplating seem to have gotten better growth hues on the edges.

 

[ksanfranfan]

Starting to see some of the bryo dissapere on day 6, still have some hanging around. Would it be ok to help aid in the destruction of them by rubbing them with a tooth brush?

You could use a tooth brush to scrub or break it apart. Many of us never assisted in the removal in the process.

 

[Ligershark]

My system is no more than 70gal total water volume. Display is a 40 breeder Coast to Coast custom tank. My sump is in my basement and holds about 10-15 gallons, and has an additional 10 gallon fuge built into it.

I wanted to share my battle with whatever green algae I had in my system. The short version of the story is that it took two doses at 160mg total and two months to get rid of the bryopsis/green hair algae/tuft algae. It was green, a *****, and would not die for years. There are several forms of bryopsis, mine did not look like a fern. I plucked some algae out and put it in a small dish, poured hydrogen peroxide on it, and it did not die...ever. I read somewhere that was a good test to know if you had gha cause the gha should die and grey out rather quickly.

Anyway over a month ago I dosed 70mg of fluconazole from the website everyone is buying it from, left my external skimmer on with the volute open all the way, no skimming, but still getting oxygen. I turned my lights low and did not run my fuge light. I removed gfo and carbon. I waited 4 weeks and nothing, it actually got worse.

Then I dosed 90mg more. Turned skimmer completely off, no gfo, no carbon, fuge light off, but left my tank light cycle normal. Everything is gone. No algae left. I noticed that areas not in direct light or in shadows took longer to die. No livestock was lost. I turned my skimmer on today, and will close the volute tomorrow. I will be doing a large water change tomorrow.

Do not be scared to over dose this stuff in your tank and blast the tank with light while dosing if your corals can handle it.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thread.

 

[furam28]

Mine was gone after 1st treatment but came back again after about 4 months. Doing my 2nd round of treatment now.

 

[furam28]

My system is no more than 70gal total water volume. Display is a 40 breeder Coast to Coast custom tank. My sump is in my basement and holds about 10-15 gallons, and has an additional 10 gallon fuge built into it.

I wanted to share my battle with whatever green algae I had in my system. The short version of the story is that it took two doses at 160mg total and two months to get rid of the bryopsis/green hair algae/tuft algae. It was green, a *****, and would not die for years. There are several forms of bryopsis, mine did not look like a fern. I plucked some algae out and put it in a small dish, poured hydrogen peroxide on it, and it did not die...ever. I read somewhere that was a good test to know if you had gha cause the gha should die and grey out rather quickly.

Anyway over a month ago I dosed 70mg of fluconazole from the website everyone is buying it from, left my external skimmer on with the volute open all the way, no skimming, but still getting oxygen. I turned my lights low and did not run my fuge light. I removed gfo and carbon. I waited 4 weeks and nothing, it actually got worse.

Then I dosed 90mg more. Turned skimmer completely off, no gfo, no carbon, fuge light off, but left my tank light cycle normal. Everything is gone. No algae left. I noticed that areas not in direct light or in shadows took longer to die. No livestock was lost. I turned my skimmer on today, and will close the volute tomorrow. I will be doing a large water change tomorrow.

Do not be scared to over dose this stuff in your tank and blast the tank with light while dosing if your corals can handle it.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thread.

I think you got the dosage wrong. For a 70 gal system, you want 1400 mg (7 of the 200mg capsules) not 160mg.

 

[Ligershark]

I think you got the dosage wrong. For a 70 gal system, you want 1400 mg (7 of the 200mg capsules) not 160mg.

My mistake...I used the 200mg capsules. 1400mg didnt do a thing. I added 1800 mg after for a total amount for 3200mg.

 

[Susan Edwards]

Good news is the display refugium is bryopsis free and much faster than my DT. I had some spots left in the DT and I'm seeing some returning in those area that didn't clear completely so it looks like I'll be doing a second round. It's just a bit here and there. Was hoping I wouldn't have to do a second round but I don't want this nasty stuff to get a toe hold again. At least there is not much so it shouldn't wreck havoc with my system like the die off in the first round.