Bryopsis Cure: My Battle With Bryopsis Using Fluconazole

coralcruze · Jan 7, 2018

This was the same red dragon colony not too long before starting flucon.

coralcruze · Jan 7, 2018

NCreefguy said:
I haven't avoided anything so lets not get things twisted here. I'll look back to see where I missed your question and respond.

I answered your questions about no water changes in my system and questioning agreeing with JM and your question about bleaching from Flucon...What am I missing?

NCreefguy said:
I answered your question by telling you that according to JM,Fluconazole doesn't effect zooxanthellae that way(bleaching corals). That IS answering your question and providing a link. How is this avoiding your question? I feel like I'm on Candid Camera or something. Am I on TV? Hello mom can you see me?

Exactly...!!! i wasn't asking about JM's opinion was asking about yours. i can see how hiding behind his theory is convenient though. Its ok not answering the question is telling in itself. no worries. Now wave hi to mom.

NCreefguy · Jan 7, 2018

coralcruze said:
Exactly...!!! i wasn't asking about JM's opinion was asking about yours. i can see how hiding behind his theory is convenient though. Its ok not answering the question is telling in itself. no worries. Now wave hi to mom.

I answered you by saying thats not the effects that flucon has. I'm not sure how more simple you would like it put. We have thousands of corals in Fluconazole right now in about 30 different systems(not all my systems). I'm telling you from what I've seen I don't think that your bleaching came from Fluconazole.

NCreefguy · Jan 7, 2018

coralcruze said:
Exactly...!!! i wasn't asking about JM's opinion was asking about yours. i can see how hiding behind his theory is convenient though. Its ok not answering the question is telling in itself. no worries. Now wave hi to mom.

Noone is hiding from anything. We can take this convo to pm if you would like so as to not clutter the thread.

Maggie321 · Jan 7, 2018

I would like to interject (hopefully without becoming a target). It seems as though the circular argument will never be won, by either party. As an outsider, I see a person that is very distraught by losing some of their prized coals and is looking for something to blame. FWIW I am sorry you lost some of your corals. I simply don't have any answers for you. I am so new to this, it's just not something I can explain (how the meds work). In my case, I had some bryopsis in my tank and was willing to take the risk of adding a medication to try and get rid of it. It worked in my case, and did no harm. Being angry is pretty normal when you loose something you love, in fact I think if you weren't angry, there may be something wrong. But please, don't take it out in front of all to see on some people who have helped so many. We have all gotten bad advice from somewhere at some point in time. If you feel they are wrong, chock it up to "bad advice". That's my $.02.

coralcruze · Jan 7, 2018

I will continue to post updates as i see others are definitely interested in what happened...

Its been at least two weeks since starting to bring the system back online. Turned my skimmer back on... turned my GFO reactor back on... Apex programing is running the same program now prior to Flucon dosing.

Already the corals are gaining some color back but hard to tell for sure. some days looks better than others.

I will keep everyone posted on progress/failures.

puffy127 · Jan 7, 2018

I had some bleaching/STN (not sure which) on the underside of some of my SPS after using fluco. I wasn't monitoring my alk levels during treatment, but after seeing the bleaching/STN, I tested my alk and the levels were high (~10 dKH vs. normally steady 8 dKH). My dosing of 2 part remained steady during treatment, so I'm thinking the increase in phosphates caused the decrease in alk consumption. So I'm not sure if it was due to the fluco, the increase in phosphates, increase in alk, or all of the above. The bleaching occured in my cali tort, birdsnest, and bonsai. All other acros (including red dragon) and euphyllia were unaffected.

NCreefguy · Jan 7, 2018

gfox said:
What type of dosage are you trying?

We'll make some posts about it soon but we're trying doses as low as 0.5mg per gallon.

NCreefguy · Jan 7, 2018

coralcruze said:
I will continue to post updates as i see others are definitely interested in what happened...

Its been at least two weeks since starting to bring the system back online. Turned my skimmer back on... turned my GFO reactor back on... Apex programing is running the same program now prior to Flucon dosing.

Already the corals are gaining some color back but hard to tell for sure. some days looks better than others.

I will keep everyone posted on progress/failures.

Please do. Like I said in the first place I hope you don't lose any more corals.

NCreefguy · Jan 7, 2018

puffy127 said:
I had some bleaching/STN (not sure which) on the underside of some of my SPS after using fluco. I wasn't monitoring my alk levels during treatment, but after seeing the bleaching/STN, I tested my alk and the levels were high (~10 dKH vs. normally steady 8 dKH). My dosing of 2 part remained steady during treatment, so I'm thinking the increase in phosphates caused the decrease in alk consumption. So I'm not sure if it was due to the fluco, the increase in phosphates, increase in alk, or all of the above. The bleaching occured in my cali tort, birdsnest, and bonsai. All other acros (including red dragon) and ephyllia were unaffected.

This is exactly what I've been saying about changes in our systems durring treatment. Not the fact that something was or wasn't caused by fluconazole but by changes that took place durring treatment that our corals we're used to.

NCreefguy · Jan 7, 2018

Maggie321 said:
I would like to interject (hopefully without becoming a target). It seems as though the circular argument will never be won, by either party. As an outsider, I see a person that is very distraught by losing some of their prized coals and is looking for something to blame. FWIW I am sorry you lost some of your corals. I simply don't have any answers for you. I am so new to this, it's just not something I can explain (how the meds work). In my case, I had some bryopsis in my tank and was willing to take the risk of adding a medication to try and get rid of it. It worked in my case, and did no harm. Being angry is pretty normal when you loose something you love, in fact I think if you weren't angry, there may be something wrong. But please, don't take it out in front of all to see on some people who have helped so many. We have all gotten bad advice from somewhere at some point in time. If you feel they are wrong, chock it up to "bad advice". That's my $.02.

I agree. I think losing corals/fish can really anger us and it's easy to just start pointing fingers but honestly we are here just trying to help each other out. Things don't always go as planned or go the way we think they should but after some time things get back to normal and life goes on. I can tell you this much...Reef/Saltwater people are passionate about their tanks and this is a good thing.

coralcruze · Jan 7, 2018

Maggie321 said:
I would like to interject (hopefully without becoming a target). It seems as though the circular argument will never be won, by either party. As an outsider, I see a person that is very distraught by losing some of their prized coals and is looking for something to blame. FWIW I am sorry you lost some of your corals. I simply don't have any answers for you. I am so new to this, it's just not something I can explain (how the meds work). In my case, I had some bryopsis in my tank and was willing to take the risk of adding a medication to try and get rid of it. It worked in my case, and did no harm. Being angry is pretty normal when you loose something you love, in fact I think if you weren't angry, there may be something wrong. But please, don't take it out in front of all to see on some people who have helped so many. We have all gotten bad advice from somewhere at some point in time. If you feel they are wrong, chock it up to "bad advice". That's my $.02.

I am not an angry person... nor am I blaming anyone where are you getting this idea? I just don't like when anyone holds an opinion one way or the other without any substantiated proof at all. Not sure how long you have been in the hobby but after 18 years I have learned to take a loss or two and I am still here. I have over 120 sps species in my tank only 6-7 colonies bleached (some worse than the others) and out of those only one I just pictured seems to be the worse off, and not 100% its dead. angry? nah I could not be happier because I am glad that I escaped without whipping out my entire tank here. Everyone has the right to their own opinion, even if they are wrong.

Here is how angry I am... from my bubble to yours... enjoy! BTW, the vid is relevant because you can see my red dragon and Hawkins Echinata in it. I filmed it a few weeks or so before starting flucon.

puffy127 · Jan 7, 2018

puffy127 said:
I had some bleaching/STN (not sure which) on the underside of some of my SPS after using fluco. I wasn't monitoring my alk levels during treatment, but after seeing the bleaching/STN, I tested my alk and the levels were high (~10 dKH vs. normally steady 8 dKH). My dosing of 2 part remained steady during treatment, so I'm thinking the increase in phosphates caused the decrease in alk consumption. So I'm not sure if it was due to the fluco, the increase in phosphates, increase in alk, or all of the above. The bleaching occured in my cali tort, birdsnest, and bonsai. All other acros (including red dragon) and euphyllia were unaffected.

Also, after a water change, and bringing my algae scrubber, carbon, and skimmer back on line after treatment, my phosphates levels dropped back down and alk dropped back down to my normal levels and is steady once again.

NCreefguy · Jan 7, 2018

coralcruze said:
I am not an angry person... nor am I blaming anyone where are you getting this idea? I just don't like when anyone holds an opinion one way or the other without any substantiated proof at all. Not sure how long you have been in the hobby but after 18 years I have learned to take a loss or two and I am still here. I have over 120 sps species in my tank only 6-7 colonies bleached (some worse than the others) and out of those only one I just pictured seems to be the worse off, and not 100% its dead. angry? nah I could not be happier because I am glad that I escaped without whipping out my entire tank here. Everyone has the right to their own opinion, even if they are wrong.

Here is how angry I am... from my bubble to yours... enjoy!

Very nice! Although it would have looked terrible if you wouldn't have used Fluconazole and ended up letting Bryopsis take over the entire tank.

coralcruze · Jan 7, 2018

NCreefguy said:
Very nice! Although it would have looked terrible if you wouldn't have used Fluconazole and ended up letting Bryopsis take over the entire tank.

true... but remember i never saw bryopsis in the main tank... only in my sump. That's why i decided to be proactive and try it as I didn't want to get any in the main display. Do I regret doing so even with the bleaching? Nah. I think we can all learn from this in one way or the other. Having said this, I still see very small patches of bryopsis in the sump so I cant say that I am 100% rid of that ugly monster yet and i sure hope that bleaching a few corals would somehow insure I never get bryopsis in the main display.

coralcruze · Jan 7, 2018

puffy127 said:
I had some bleaching/STN (not sure which) on the underside of some of my SPS after using fluco. I wasn't monitoring my alk levels during treatment, but after seeing the bleaching/STN, I tested my alk and the levels were high (~10 dKH vs. normally steady 8 dKH). My dosing of 2 part remained steady during treatment, so I'm thinking the increase in phosphates caused the decrease in alk consumption. So I'm not sure if it was due to the fluco, the increase in phosphates, increase in alk, or all of the above. The bleaching occured in my cali tort, birdsnest, and bonsai. All other acros (including red dragon) and euphyllia were unaffected.

puffy127 said:
Also, after a water change, and bringing my algae scrubber, carbon, and skimmer back on line after treatment, my phosphates levels dropped back down and alk dropped back down to my normal levels and is steady once again.

Thanks so much for your comment. Most interesting. See I have always kept slightly elevated Mg 1350-1400, Cal 450-500 and Alk 10-10.5 due to the sheer number of SPS in my tank. I never saw any ill effect when keeping cal and alk slightly elevated consistantly for three years and was always amazed just how quickly Alk especially gets used up if not replenished. My system is completely automated and I was monitoring closely all levels and testing more often than normal (once a month, religiously). None of my majors went out of whack during the treatment. However your observation about PO4 is the same, similar to mine. although I have had Po4 elevate to higher than normal levels in my tank perhaps the PROBLEM is with HOW we are dosing Floucon not the med itself??? If I had to use it again with no other choice I probably would not have kept the skimmer off for as long as I did or the GFO completely off... or dilution through water changes. It sounds like its tricky trying to balance rising PO4 with dying Bryopsis and how both of those affect the more sensitive corals in the tank? Catch 22.
May I ask... what was your Calcium level at? STN/RTN in SPS is usually caused by the majors going way out of whack relative to each other. just wondering if you know what Cal was?

NCreefguy · Jan 7, 2018

coralcruze said:
true... but remember i never saw bryopsis in the main tank... only in my sump. That's why i decided to be proactive and try it as I didn't want to get any in the main display. Do I regret doing so even with the bleaching? Nah. I think we can all learn from this in one way or the other. Having said this, I still see very small patches of bryopsis in the sump so I cant say that I am 100% rid of that ugly monster yet and i sure hope that bleaching a few corals would somehow insure I never get bryopsis in the main display.

Sumps seem to take longer for the Bryopsis to die off from what we've seen. The only thing that we could attribute this to was the lower par levels of lighting but several people's sumps were being blasted with lighting and it still took a little longer.

puffy127 · Jan 7, 2018

coralcruze said:
Thanks so much for your comment. Most interesting. See I have always kept slightly elevated Mg 1350-1400, Cal 450-500 and Alk 10-10.5 due to the sheer number of SPS in my tank. I never saw any ill effect when keeping cal and alk slightly elevated consistantly for three years and was always amazed just how quickly Alk especially gets used up if not replenished. My system is completely automated and I was monitoring closely all levels and testing more often than normal (once a month, religiously). None of my majors went out of whack during the treatment. However your observation about PO4 is the same, similar to mine. although I have had Po4 elevate to higher than normal levels in my tank perhaps the PROBLEM is with HOW we are dosing Floucon not the med itself??? If I had to use it again with no other choice I probably would not have kept the skimmer off for as long as I did or the GFO completely off... or dilution through water changes. It sounds like its tricky trying to balance rising PO4 with dying Bryopsis and how both of those affect the more sensitive corals in the tank? Catch 22.
May I ask... what was your Calcium level at? STN/RTN in SPS is usually caused by the majors going way out of whack. just wondering if you know what Cal was?

Calcium has been steady at around 420 ppm.