Bryopsis Cure: My Battle With Bryopsis Using Fluconazole

A13X · Aug 28, 2017

Hi everyone,
Been fallowing some. I've started my treatment last night after a water change.
My skimmer is on but have taped off the air intake so no bubble/foam is being produced. Removed Carbon and turned off my UV Sterilizer. My question is,
Has anyone treated but kept their Sterilizer on?
I'm a big believer that it keeps ICH at bay. And I just don't want an outbreak since their is nothing keeping it in check.
Thanks in advance.

Victoria M · Aug 28, 2017

I suggest you untape your air inlet and just allow the skimmer to over flow. Keeping the tank well oxygenated during any treatment seems to often be the thing that keeps the fish from suffering.

ksanfranfan · Aug 28, 2017

A13X said:
Hi everyone,
Been fallowing some. I've started my treatment last night after a water change.
My skimmer is on but have taped off the air intake so no bubble/foam is being produced. Removed Carbon and turned off my UV Sterilizer. My question is,
Has anyone treated but kept their Sterilizer on?
I'm a big believer that it keeps ICH at bay. And I just don't want an outbreak since their is nothing keeping it in check.
Thanks in advance.

It's been recommended to turn uv sterilizers off. The uv light is believed to affect fluconazole and lessen its ability to properly treat and cure the problem.
As far as I can remember, everyone that had a uv sterilizer took them offline. Some even turned of certain lights over their display tanks that they felt could prohibit the process.

Acronuts · Aug 28, 2017

liveround69 said:
It took about 48 to 72 hrs before i seen the tips start to lose the really bright green color. By day 6 the stuff was really white from top to bottom. By day 10 i had a major cyano outbreak. I had to turn on the skimmer and do a water change on day 12. So have patience and rest assured the treatment works great. I can see in your pics its starting to turn brown on the tips. In a week you are going to be really happy.

I was wondering if you saw any stress to your animals waiting that long to turn skimmer on. On my first treatment I turned skimmer back on by day 5 and let it just run and empty into sump. Clearly I may have pulled out meds too quickly bc by 3rd month my bryopsis was back but just in one spot.
Its been 6 days since 2nd treatment and almost all biopsies is gone except for the twigs that are attached to the rock. I'm not ready to turn skimmer on. I will wait till the 14th day so that those little shoots can die off.

liveround69 · Aug 28, 2017

Acronuts said:
I was wondering if you saw any stress to your animals waiting that long to turn skimmer on. On my first treatment I turned skimmer back on by day 5 and let it just run and empty into sump. Clearly I may have pulled out meds too quickly bc by 3rd month my bryopsis was back but just in one spot.
Its been 6 days since 2nd treatment and almost all biopsies is gone except for the twigs that are attached to the rock. I'm not ready to turn skimmer on. I will wait till the 14th day so that those little shoots can die off.

First off my Maroon clownfish laid eggs during the process which showed how little it affected them and frankly I didn't see any of my creatures acting funny other than my snails. Around day 10 or so they were hanging on the sides of the tank near the bottom. Which of course tells me that they were having problems with the nutrient rich water due to the die off. I did turn on the skimmer that day but was not sure if it was what they needed to alleviate their stress. Two days later i did a major water change and scrubbed the sump (to insure success). I did see a return of the green hair algae a few weeks later. It is harder to kill than the bryopsis (with the Flucon).

I agree to not turn on your skimmer till your near the 14 day mark. It seems to be the key to crossing the finish line. I think removing the treatment early only sets you up for failure. At least that is what it seems to have happened to me in my case. Im now on my 2nd treatment ( day 10) right now.

Susan Edwards · Aug 28, 2017

Okay, started second dose in the main display. Seeing a bit more so time to nuke it. Display refugium still has one tiny patch that I found after doing a small wc. I won't add carbon back into the canister filter and will watch. If need be, I'll just dose without removing anything with carbon. Really want this cr** gone!

jsbull · Aug 29, 2017

My gratitude to everyone who figured this out.

I have a dual Reefer set-up. It's 150 total gallons with a 92 gallon display on one side and a 34 gallon display beside it. Both are plumbed together. The 34 gallon tank is a display refugium that hosts a lot of macro algae, gorgonians, sponges, a blood shrimp, seahorses, and a couple of tiny fish.

Bryopsis, green and brown hair algae were all only on the seahorse side and did not spread to my main display tank. For reference, I use mesh filter socks, but have a large UV on my system.

I started using Flunco 200 two weeks ago and it appears that the bryopsis is completely gone. It was around day 10 that it really declined, so it did take a while with very little progress before it kicked in. Strangely, the hair algae has increased. I continue to pull it out, but it's growing strong. I expect it's from the die-off of the bryopsis, but I was hoping my other macro algae would take care of that. I did not use GFO and have had my skimmer's cap off for the entire time.

I am going to do a water change, then another round with Flunco to see if it will take care of the hair algae. Regardless, I'm pleased with the results on the bryopsis and the fact that it didn't kill all my macro algae like Vibrant is said to do.

I will note that my corals reacted interestingly to it.
Acans: no noticeable response
Favias: slight shrinkage on the big one, the small don't show much change.
GSP (Green Star Polyps): hated it and have mostly been closed up the entire time.
Leather: has been hiding most of the time
Mushrooms: shrunk up
Zoas: seem to hate it and are mostly closed up

My display refugium for reference:

Susan Edwards · Aug 29, 2017

@jsbull love your refugium. I did the same thing. I have a 37 gal dr close to my dt. Not plumbed together yet but soon I hope.

mcarroll · Aug 30, 2017

ksanfranfan said:
Some have had to do a second treatment for different reasons.

I'm not watching too close anymore but it still seems like there are A LOT of repeat fluconazole treatments going on. I wish there was a way to know how many folks were really ultimately successful without having any comebacks. Also wish the reasons for the comebacks that happen were better understood so further measures could be more certainly taken.

Anyone know of anyone on here (or elsewhere) doing any investigating on Bryopsis into questions like these?

The downside of an available cure – even if the cure is only hypothetical like the many dinoflagellate cures out there – seems to be that folks stop digging into the problem itself. I'd love to bump into someone who's experimenting with Bryopsis.

NCreefguy · Aug 30, 2017

mcarroll said:
I'm not watching too close anymore but it still seems like there are A LOT of repeat fluconazole treatments going on. I wish there was a way to know how many folks were really ultimately successful without having any comebacks. Also wish the reasons for the comebacks that happen were better understood so further measures could be more certainly taken.

Anyone know of anyone on here (or elsewhere) doing any investigating on Bryopsis into questions like these?

The downside of an available cure – even if the cure is only hypothetical like the many dinoflagellate cures out there – seems to be that folks stop digging into the problem itself. I'd love to bump into someone who's experimenting with Bryopsis.

I know someone who hasn't had any Bryopsis return after his initial treatment.

Susan Edwards · Aug 30, 2017

Maybe the severity of the infestation plays a role. Mine was so thick, I'm not surprised that it didn't get it all or that some is returning. Where it is returning is where it either didn't get it all or that area died off near the end. Perhaps waiting longer to do a wc might have allowed more time but I did so just after 14 days. The rock higher up that was one of the worst is still clear but the lower rocks are where I'm seeing it returning.

ksanfranfan · Aug 31, 2017

mcarroll said:
I'm not watching too close anymore but it still seems like there are A LOT of repeat fluconazole treatments going on. I wish there was a way to know how many folks were really ultimately successful without having any comebacks. Also wish the reasons for the comebacks that happen were better understood so further measures could be more certainly taken.

Anyone know of anyone on here (or elsewhere) doing any investigating on Bryopsis into questions like these?

The downside of an available cure – even if the cure is only hypothetical like the many dinoflagellate cures out there – seems to be that folks stop digging into the problem itself. I'd love to bump into someone who's experimenting with Bryopsis.

I was just pointing that out for certain cases. Some had to stop because nutrient levels increased rapidly and they had to perform water changes much earlier than the suggested treatment period.
In my case I had to retreat one of my tanks due to my own negligence. Adding new corals from a friends tank that I found out had bryopsis. It was bryopsis free for 2 months. My other tank has had 0 issues with bryopsis since the initial treatment.
Another thing that I've noticed is people treating their tanks and not sure if it is bryopsis or gha. In other cases people are just treating for gha and don't have bryopsis. Things can become skewed in this way because we are not sure in some cases as to why it's taking repeat treatments to rid bryopsis only.
Just like you, I prefer natural methods of eradicating nuisance algaes. Bryopsis is the exception for me. Gha ,IMO, is an easy algae to eradicate. It can be somewhat resilient but it will die off with repeated efforts, starvation and a proper clean up crew.
I, myself, don't know of anyone currently conducting any testing or analysis of this treatment. Right now any long term effects will probably be proven through those of us that have utilized this treatment in our own tanks.
So far I haven't seen anything in my tanks that can be linked to the use of fluconazole.
If I would have thought of it when I treated my tanks, I would have sent water samples to triton for an analysis for before and after treatments.
The only long term information that can be found for this treatment is on the South America forum in Brazil. Right now that's all we have to go by until more research is done.

Hyperion · Sep 1, 2017

After 2 weeks of treatment. I am going to be doing a water change + adding back carbon. I did notice with the treatment certain millies had really bad PE, but no loss in coloration.
Hopefully, I don't have to do this treatment again in the future.

larcat · Sep 1, 2017

Just wanted to thank everyone again --

To briefly recap, it took longer for us to see initial results than it does for most people. We are 3 weeks past the end of the treatment now, and have not seen it spring back. It seems to have been completely successful. Bryopsis died much faster than GHA.

To the pioneers, my thanks again!

larcat said:
Fwiw we have 3 kessil 360 over what's basically a 40b and Flucon is working fine in ours. Afaik kessil have the most uv of any current fixtures.

Update -- on day 7 and all of the high light bryopsis is GONE. Low light stuff is looking scraggly. GHA in the sump is starting to look weak. We didn't see obvious impact till day 5, so be patient

We used tablets fwiw. 1200 mg total for ~ 60-70 gal of water total.

Thank you so much to the pioneers in this thread.

North Borders · Sep 1, 2017

Hi folks, pharmacist here. I hope you will add this to the first page sticky as this needs to be put out in the FAQ. Fluconazole has recently been listed on the NIOSH hazardous drugs list by the CDC. It is considered able to cause birth defects in fetuses, so if you're a woman of childbearing age you should be gloving up before handling the drug. Especially important because we're opening capsules and crushing tablets to get this in the water column. We make our female workers glove and wear a mask when compounding with the drug due to this risk.

Now back to your regularly scheduled bryopsis holocaust

Mr. Brooks · Sep 1, 2017

I did one treatment. It killed the byropsis and hair algae and kicked off a big nutrient upswing. My acros were not happy. The hair algae is 99.9% gone but the byropsis is coming back in my frag tank with a vengeance. Going to try a sea hare and lettuce nudibranch.

ksanfranfan · Sep 2, 2017

North Borders said:
Hi folks, pharmacist here. I hope you will add this to the first page sticky as this needs to be put out in the FAQ. Fluconazole has recently been listed on the NIOSH hazardous drugs list by the CDC. It is considered able to cause birth defects in fetuses, so if you're a woman of childbearing age you should be gloving up before handling the drug. Especially important because we're opening capsules and crushing tablets to get this in the water column. We make our female workers glove and wear a mask when compounding with the drug due to this risk.

Now back to your regularly scheduled bryopsis holocaust

Good advice. Early on it was brought up to take precautions around pets due to health risks as well. I used nitrile gloves each time I handled the medication but no mask.
Maybe NCREEFGUY can add it to the first page of this thread. There's also another big fluconazole thread that it should probably be brought up on as also.