Bryopsis Cure: My Battle With Bryopsis Using Fluconazole

[Jose Mayo]

Do you think I should just yank the entire colony from the tank? I mean it appears as though it’s a total loss and I don’t want its death to cause some other problems?

What about reintroducing the phosguard? I read earlier in the thread that you said to leave it in the keep parameters in line etc ; but then you later linked to an article that says it can leech the meds from the water? Thank you so much for the response and sharing of knowledge.

Best regards

Regarding the colony, and if it has signs of RTN or STN, the recommendation that is still prevalent is to remove it from the tank, to fragment the viable parts (if any), to fix them in new bases with methacrylate super glue and to try to grow them in a tank of frags well balanced.

Regarding Phosguard, there is evidence that aluminum media can fix fluconazole on its surface and help remove it, but for this purpose the best medium is activated charcoal, which can remove almost all the drug from the water column within a few hours , if this is the intention. As a means of controlling the phosphate released by algae death, GFO can be used.

Regards

 

[gatorbait01]

So I’m one day in and came to check the tank this morning and found one of my entire acropora colonies destroyed and my space invader pectinia to be dying quickly as well. what the heck did I do wrong?

I have had this colony for many years and never had any issues and in one day the flesh completely broke away, see the pic(I know it’s bad color). They are not mesenterial Filoments it appears to be a mucus of some sort. space invader is doing the same thing. All other corals in the tank seem unaffected.
NOTE: This is the only full mariculture colony I have in the tank. It has always had small barnaclesthat lived seemingly peacefully near the base. Perhaps that had something to do with this? Just trying to mention everything.

Bio cube 32, I normally run phosguard and purigen with weekly water changes. I took these out as per Mayos recommendations prior to dosing the 600mg of Fluco (reef flux). All parameters are within their normal limits when I tested about 12 hours in yesterday :
PH 8-8.1
Po4: 0
Nh3/nh4:0
No2:0
No3:0

Any help would be appreciated, don’t want to lost anything else

Sorry this is happening to you. I have a space Invader pectina as well and a have a 29gal sps tank and have treated 3 different times w/ 600mg of reef Flux and have had no issues. I actually have not seen any adverse effects what so ever when dosing reef Flux.

 

[GlassyReefer]

Sorry this is happening to you. I have a space Invader pectina as well and a have a 29gal sps tank and have treated 3 different times w/ 600mg of reef Flux and have had no issues. I actually have not seen any adverse effects what so ever when dosing reef Flux.

Thanks for the kind words. Are any of the acros mariculture from the wild? All the other acros that were frags from aquaculture in my tank seem fine but this was the only mariculture. I even have small frags of the same acro an inch away from the colony and they have ZERO RTN. The space invader flesh appears to be rotting away in areas that are well lit and not so much in shaded areas....isn’t this the same type of die off you see in other fluco death(high lit areas more affected).

Update: I now have a pink mushroom that is shriveling up and closed completely, something else I have never seen.

I just want to openly and honestly share all this information so everyone who is thinking of using this can know that this could happen to you. I’m not some newbie reefer with sick corals. Iv been reefing for years and NEVER seen anything like this.
Perhaps there is some variable we aren’t testing for ; and that the introduction of this chemical(fluco) throws this way out of wack, and because certain corals are much more susceptible to the change of the variable than others they go fast? I have no idea just hypothesizing.

Hell, years ago I let one of my tanks go for a while neglected, few water changes , etc... had some slight STN with some of these same corals over months time but they never died and came right back after parameters were fixed. Never lost one coral until now.

 

[gatorbait01]

Thanks for the kind words. Are any of the acros mariculture from the wild? All the other acros that were frags from aquaculture in my tank seem fine but this was the only mariculture. I even have small frags of the same acro an inch away from the colony and they have ZERO RTN. The space invader flesh appears to be rotting away in areas that are well lit and not so much in shaded areas....isn’t this the same type of die off you see in other fluco death(high lit areas more affected).

Update: I now have a pink mushroom that is shriveling up and closed completely, something else I have never seen.

I just want to openly and honestly share all this information so everyone who is thinking of using this can know that this could happen to you. I’m not some newbie reefer with sick corals. Iv been reefing for years and NEVER seen anything like this.
Perhaps there is some variable we aren’t testing for ; and that the introduction of this chemical(fluco) throws this way out of wack, and because certain corals are much more susceptible to the change of the variable than others they go fast? I have no idea just hypothesizing.

Hell, years ago I let one of my tanks go for a while neglected, few water changes , etc... had some slight STN with some of these same corals over months time but they never died and came right back after parameters were fixed. Never lost one coral until now.

So that's one difference... 100% of my acros are aquacultured from other reefers. My pectina is probably sitting at around 175 par levels.

 

[GlassyReefer]

So that's one difference... 100% of my acros are aquacultured from other reefers. My pectina is probably sitting at around 175 par levels.

I can’t say the par level but iv got the Steve’s LED upgrade on my bio cube 32 and its down in the corner. This is the only little frag I had left( sold others a while ago)

I will also note, it is killing the Bryopsis

 

[jason7570]

It definitely has its pros and cons with my experience. That being said, I’ve used it 3 different Times and have charted everything. I would advise not fragging anything while this is in your system ( not sure why I did) as it caused everyone of my cut frags to recede and zoas to melt. All 84 frags. Acropora, Monti’s and shrooms do well, stylos ( I.e space jam, burning banana and looney tunes seems to do well also. Leptos and Favias get a little ***** and ALL high-end zoas get super ticked...I think all-in-all the worst would be cyphastreas. I did cut my actinic t’5 off after the 7th day and noticed things were looking better ( maybe they were getting aclimated to the meds?!?)
I would recommend this as a great bryopsis eliminator as it’s always knocked out mine for 6-8 months...

 

[GlassyReefer]

It definitely has its pros and cons with my experience. That being said, I’ve used it 3 different Times and have charted everything. I would advise not fragging anything while this is in your system ( not sure why I did) as it caused everyone of my cut frags to recede and zoas to melt. All 84 frags. Acropora, Monti’s and shrooms do well, stylos ( I.e space jam, burning banana and looney tunes seems to do well also. Leptos and Favias get a little ***** and ALL high-end zoas get super ******...I think all-in-all the worst would be cyphastreas. I did cut my actinic t’5 off after the 7th day and noticed things were looking better ( maybe they were getting aclimated to the meds?!?)
I would recommend this as a great bryopsis eliminator as it’s always knocked out mine for 6-8 months...

It’s funny you mention fragging, the rock the colony was on was moved recently and it was accidentally fragged because it hit a wall. So there were multiple unsealed tips exposed to open water. Based on your comments I’m wondering if this is not the cause? The space invader pectinia had also not completely healed from fragging.


It would be nice if this sort of anecdotal evidence could be added to the OP so other know what they could be getting into and how to potentially avoid losses.

 

[Tft12]

I had bryopsis in my system for about 2 years. For the first year and a half I would get one small clump in my display here and there and remove it manually. I really didn’t know why people hated bryopsis so much since it was easy to control...then it stopped being easy control and smothered/killed a few acros that I really liked. I’m on day 5 of treatment and about 80% of my Bryopsis is gone. I haven’t seen any inhabitants look stressed at all. There’s been no visible effect on my chaeto but my ulva has died back a little (not a problem).

Thank you very much to @NCreefguy, @Jose Mayo, @Sabellafella, and everyone else that helped develop this. This on the short list of convenient reef fixes that work.

 

[Jony Suruy]

Hi guys
greetings from Guatemala, I had a marine tank for 6 years before GHA and Briopsis made me leave for some time, I happened to run into this post two weeks ago and I read the 258 pages. Thank you very much for sharing your experiences, I have been encouraged to resume the hobby, and by the way you have beautiful aquariums.
thanks.

 

[StevenH]

Currently suffering this in my tank at an alarming growth rate, been picking it off rocks for weeks and now it has fully entangled one of my darth maul zoa collonys, and its stressing out my corals to where they never open up.

http://www.allivet.com/p-7911-fish-...wubIdos_eVnr-0-8G1_HDFTPnD16I88xoC4ooQAvD_BwE

Would this work? How do you obtain the tablet forms? Did you go to a pharmacy? I also have a 56gal cube tank, if I got the tablets what would be the recomended dose for that size tank? No sump.

 

[Matyas]

BRS has Reef Flux for $16. I am currently using it against derbesia algae. I am on day 9 and it is showing a little effect. Does derbesia contain the sybiot fungus that supplies ergestorol?

 

[Jason Schwend]

Would I have to take out my chemi pure and my phosguard when I run the treatment? I heard that leaving in the phosguard will help to remove sum of the waste from the bryopsis breaking down.

 

[Marc Daniels]

BRS has Reef Flux for $16. I am currently using it against derbesia algae. I am on day 9 and it is showing a little effect. Does derbesia contain the sybiot fungus that supplies ergestorol?

In the most simplistic terms, all life that I know of utilizes some sort of "sterol" to help maintain cell wall integrity. The sterol that humans are most familiar with is cholesterol since it inhabits our bodies and is affected by our diets. Bryopsis, Derbesia and fungus utilize ergosterol which is why the fluconazole affects all three...there is no fungus within the algae supplying it with ergosterol.

 

[Marc Daniels]

Would I have to take out my chemi pure and my phosguard when I run the treatment? I heard that leaving in the phosguard will help to remove sum of the waste from the bryopsis breaking down.

There is some evidence that aluminum based phosphate removers, such as PhosGuard, will leech out some of the fluconazole. I believe that Chemi Pure is fine.

 

[Marc Daniels]

I ordered from bryopsisfluconazole.com . I talked to them and theirs is pure 100% fluconazole powder with no inactive ingredients/fillers like most capsules have.

Even medical/pharmaceutical grade is only 99%+ pure. Since they state that it is "lab tested" then they should be able to supply a copy of the lab report, which would provide impurity info similar to this. I guarantee that they are not 100% pure Fluconazole and it is sketchy of them to say otherwise.
Impurity A: ≤0.2%
Impurity B ≤0.10%
Impurity C: ≤0.2%
Any other impurity:≤0.10%
Total of other impurities:≤0.3%
Total impurities:≤1.5%

 

[Tajaba]

Hey Guys and Gals

For those of you that are wondering. I recently made a bit of a mess and got the wrong drug (Ketoconazole instead of Fluconazole) so I decided to try it out anyways.

Well, turns out Ketoconazole is also effective on Algae (apparently every algae since I have Caulerpa lentillifera, Ulva sp., Botryocladia and also a gracillaria sp along with Chaeto and some seagrass) I used 9mg/l dose and first 3 days pretty much all of them have stopped photosynthesizing (I used pH meter to gauge photosynthesis rate). The problem is, unlike Fluconazole, Ketoconazole seems to be toxic to inverts to a certain degree. My astrea snails are falling off rocks all over the place. They're not dead, but they seem to be weakened by it. The urchins are hanging on, but they are also weakened. All my LPS contracted and haven't come out since day 1. My SPS have no polyp extension on them. Fishes are completely fine however.

I just wanted to share my experience since I didn't see any info on [Ketoconazole] yet.

tl;dr = Ketoconazole works at 9mg/l but causes reactions in inverterbrates.

 

[KTTX]

how did you fix your gha in sandbed?

Thanks

Any idea on this ID? Sand bed only, it’s in clumps and easy to move.

I can’t seem to find the original link this thread once had to buy Fluconazole for cheap from that Chinese place... I bought if forever ago and now need more to try and eradicate this GHA.

 

[Steven La Torre]

Hi Everyone!

Hey, having an issue as well and someone led me on to believe it might indeed be Bryopsis instead of gha. Wondering if anyone can help confirm this?

 

[Jason Schwend]

Yup looks just like mine. Fyi hydrogen peroxide will get rid of it temporarily. It will come back unless eradicated. Seems like people are having good results with the fluconazole tho. The bryopsis looks like gha with a bunch of split ends and in tough patches thats really hard to remove by hand.

 

[Lninwa]

What is the address to buy Fluconozole? Thanks