Bryopsis Cure: My Battle With Bryopsis Using Fluconazole

[Reeferdude1888]

Hi guys took the plunge and dosed the tank with Fluconasole yesterday I performed a water change 2hrs before I dosed and removed skimmer cup and carbon .
Today I was just observing my sump and the amount of micro bubbles been produced because the skimmer cup is of and I was thinking although the skimmer cup is of the amount of bubbles being produced is more or less bubble scrubbing so this would aid in the uptake of nutrients possibly just thought I'd ask not 100% sure .

 

[Michael Gray]

Fluconazole got rid of my bryopsis a few weeks ago. I have GHA. I decided to run another flucon treatment. And I dosed Thursday morning. It's now Monday and I feel the GHA exploded in growth. It has not done anything for knocking down the flucon. Lol. Not a thing. I been testing po4 2 times a day and dose phos rx if it rises above .02. To keep it from reabsorbing the po4. But ya. Nothing is knocking out or down the GHA. Even have vibrant in the system. I'm gonna slowly remove the sandbed to see if this helps over time. In case the sand is a factor.

Dosed Thursday morning. Left skimmer off for 4 days. Now it's on. But no sign on help

 

[narkotix]

Hi Guys,

OTC Fluconazole (for thrush) here in oz is 150mg does that mean i just measure it out at 5mg/l per litre so in effect that 150mg would treat 30 litres?

Are any of the other ingredients in the tablets an issue?

btw specifications of the tablet below

https://www.ebs.tga.gov.au/servlet/xmlmillr6?dbid=ebs/PublicHTML/pdfStore.nsf&docid=177903&agid=(PrintDetailsPublic)&actionid=1

Thanks,
nark

 

[twilliard]

It's unreal to see that flucon is still holding strong.
Keep it up!

 

[ScottB]

Hi don't no if anyone is still viewing this post i see it says take ato offline and sanatise it ,my ato is in a separate 5g tank in a different area from my main dt and sump so would I still have to take it offline for the duration of the treatment any feedback would be mutch appreciated thank you.

Perhaps they meant ATS (algae turf scrubber). That would make sense. ATO makes no sense to me.

 

[Ribo15]

I’m sure this has been answered but this thread is very long and I’ve scrolled a lot. Where does someone from Canada have any luck finding this?

 

[anddak]

Hi all,

so after some research and asking around in this forum, my nusiance algae was identified as bryopsis.

I started the cure described here, dosed 300mg to 12g. That’s somewhere between 5 and 9 mg/l.
I am at day 7 now and if anything, I have more bryopsis than what I’ve had, so it didn’t seem that the fluconazole had any effect on it. Any ideas?

Thank you!

 

[ScottB]

Hi all,

so after some research and asking around in this forum, my nusiance algae was identified as bryopsis.

I started the cure described here, dosed 300mg to 12g. That’s somewhere between 5 and 9 mg/l.
I am at day 7 now and if anything, I have more bryopsis than what I’ve had, so it didn’t seem that the fluconazole had any effect on it. Any ideas?

Thank you!

Uhhh that looks like good ole fashioned green hair algae to me. I could be wrong, but this is what bryopsis looks like... it has a "fern" shaped structure.

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Bryopsis

 

[anddak]

Uhhh that looks like good ole fashioned green hair algae to me. I could be wrong, but this is what bryopsis looks like... it has a "fern" shaped structure.

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Bryopsis

thank you, it doesn’t look like bryopsis looking at it again. We “diagnosed” it here on the forum, I have very little experience so it happens.

I heard GHA doesn’t have roots, in a sense that its easy to scrub it off, but this one I have is actually very hard to scrub it off. Could it be something else maybe?

 

[Dark_Knightt]

*******Important*******
If someone from this forum sends you a PM and trys to persuade you to not use this med,you should PM a mod(or pm me and I'll forward it to a mod) and let them know that you are being harassed. Many of the biggest names in the saltwater industry are now using this treament or have used it and you don't deserve to be harassed just becaused someone doesn't agree with it.

The Poll In This Thread is For Bryopsis Only not GHA,Turf,Bubble Algae or any other Algae

The 2 week treatment is for Bryopsis algae. For GHA,turf algae and bubble algae it may take as long as 4-6 weeks to kill.

GHA,turf algae,bubble algae are different than Bryopsis algae. Bryopsis algae will not return if you kill all of the Bryopsis cells unless you reintroduce it into your tank. The others can/will return once you stop treating your tank and perform water changes to remove the meds. Fluconazole doesn't change the conditions in your tank that allowed for the algae growth in the first place. Removing the meds just sends your tank back to the same conditons that you had before the treatment. If your using Fluconazole for something other than Bryopsis and wonder why GHA/turf/bubble algae comes back after you stop using Flucon, this is the reason. The poll is for Bryopsis algae not GHA/turf algae/Bubble algae or any other algae.People are killing other forms of algae with Flucon but if/when it comes back after they stop using it,they think that the treatment didn't work and vote no but it did work,they just removed the meds and sent their tank back to the same conditions as before the treatment.Once you perform water changes and remove the meds,you'll have to address the problems that you have in your tank that allowed GHA/turf/bubble algae to grow to start with.


Continuous Low Dose Usage
We've got systems that are running on a continuous 5-20%(depending on nutrient levels) of the original dosage of Fluconazole. These systems were treated with the orginal dose(20mg/gal) for the first 3-6 weeks(depending on amount/type of algae). There were a few tanks(out of over 30 tanks)that were treated twice from being covered in GHA. Bryopsis died in the first few weeks in each system that had it(or at least all that we could visually see).
After the 3-6 weeks we performed a 20% water change with an additional 20% water change the following week. We then dosed most of the tanks with 10%(2mg/gal) of the original dosage except for some higher nutrient systems that we dosed 20%(4mg/gal).We did have a couple ULNS that we dosed with .5mg/gal with varying results. (it's hard to match every single factor in these tanks)So what we decided was to go with 1-2mg/gal for the ULNS.Once a month we perform a 20% water change and replace the 20% flucon dose.As I've said,we have some systems that haven't had a water change in months.We'll have more details about that later.
So in all we ran 20mg/gal to kill the algae then 1-4mg/gal to to keep any GHA from returning.

Please read the Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs) located right after the pictures before you treat your tank.It should answer most of your questions and help you avoid some mistakes.

Fluconazole can be used as an antifungal med for fish and I haven't seen any adverse reactions from using it, but I just don't want anyone to come back and say that they killed their fish/corals or inverts and blame me. This was not my discovery as I am just following what some others have already done. If you try this it is at your own risk and don't shoot the messenger.


Okay so like I have said in another Fluconazole thread,I always inspect and QT everything before it goes into my tank. I had several frags in qt for a few weeks and all seamed fine. Before transferring them to my DT I brushed off what looked like regular green surface algae and thought nothing of it.Well after about a month all three frags had a healthy helping of Bryopsis growing on them.
I've had to deal with this years ago so I know what kind of a struggle it can be. I did not want to just sit around and hope this cleared itself up because I knew this could get really bad.I had a tank full of Bryopsis years ago and tried everything I could to get rid of it and it just kept spreading everywhere.
Finally after gallons and gallons (system was almost 400gls)of Kent Tech M I was able to melt the Bryopsis away but it was no picnic.

Now, after learning that Kent Tech M has changed and doesn't work anymore or is hit or miss now,I read about some people having success against Bryopsis using Vibrant.I tried Vibrant for a couple of months and it did damage the Bryopsis fern/fan leaves but it wouldn't kill it off completely. I know people say to just give it more time but let me show you what can happen when you give Bryopsis time in your tank.(BTW I'm not knocking Vibrant or @UWC I think he has been a stand up guy on this forum and some people have had great success using their products)

They did not call me the Bryopsis King for no reason........

It was like this across the entire tank. Notice for you tang lovers out there that mine had no interest what so ever in eating any of the Bryopsis.If they would have kept the rocks picked clean this would not have reached being the forest that you see.I have more pics but it's ugly and I think you get the picture.As you can see,this would be my reason for NOT wanting to wait too long on this.

Anyway this brings me up to using Fluconazole. After searching the good ole web I found that some people(some over seas) were using Fluconazole in a one time dose to kill off Byropsis. At first I thought that this was too good to be true.I mean most people were saying that their tanks were Bryopsis free in about 10-15 days give or take a few days. Then they started posting before and after pics and also saying that they had not lost any fish or corals!! OMG sign me up! I thought. Well after doing a little more research I found out that Fluconazole can be used to treat infections/diseases in fish and that the dosage I would need to use was considered somewhat "safe" for the fish so I placed an order..

There were two different dosages that were being used. One was 9mg/L and the other was 150mg/30L which is 5mg/L. I have 200 gallons of total water volume in this system which is 757L. So 757L x 9mg/L would be a dose of 6813mg. 757L x 5mg/L would be a dose of 3785mg.
I went with 4000mg so it was 20mg per gallon.
Everyone was seeing their results when using the lower dose so I went with the lower dose.

*Also note that if I were using Fluconazole to treat my fish for infections I would need to dose this same amount every 24hrs for no less than 5 days but not more than 10 days.

This made me feel somewhat better about using it because this would be a one time dose and not building up 5-10 times as much in my aquarium over the course of 5-10 days.

So let the battle begin!!

Before I dosed the tank I turned off my actinic lighting,changed my filter socks from 200 micron to mesh filter socks,turned off the UV channels on my Radions,removed my GFO/GAC filters and removed my skimmer cup.

I emptied 20 of the 200mg capsule in a cup of tank water and stirred for a minute or two.(throw away the empty capsules) Not all of the medication dissolved but that's okay. I then poured the entire cup in my DT in front of a powerhead.
Cloudiness went away after about an hour. Fish,corals and inverts didn't seem to notice any change at all.

I apologize in advance for my blurry pics as photography is not my strong suit.

Edit: I know some people don't like reading through entire threads and just want to see the results so I'll keep this first post updated with all the pics.

Before the treatment started...

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

8 Months later and still no Bryopsis....

A big thank you to @stevo01 for his help on the FAQ for this thread.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

****This treatment seems to work best in well lit areas of the tank. Some people are noticing quicker results by adding light to the shaded areas of their tank.*****

Q: Will Fluconazole kill Bryopsis?
A: YES. Fluconazole will kill Bryopsis. There have been a couple of strains that seems to take longer to kill but if you have Bryopsis,it will kill it.It has also killed most forms of GHA although GHA takes longer to kill. Some tanks have needed another treatment to kill all of the GHA.Keep in mind that GHA can/will return in your system over time as you perform water changes and remove the Fluconazole. GHA shows up any time the conditions are right for its growth.This does not mean the treatment didn't work,only that the conditions were right for its return. Bryopsis however won't return in your system unless you didn't kill all of the Bryopsis cells during treatment or you reintroduce it into your tank through frags etc.

Q: How does Fluconazole work?
A: Fluconazole blocks the enzymatic pathway for the production of ergosterol. Ergosterol is essential for maintaining the cell wall integrity of plants. Ergosterol (ergosta-5,7,22-trien-3β-ol) is a sterol found in cell membranes of fungi and protozoa, serving many of the same functions that cholesterol serves in animal cells.

Q: Will Fluconazole kill anything else in my system?
A: So far Fluconazole has not killed anything other than bryopsis and GHA. Everything and I mean EVERYTHING else is unaffected.

Q: Where do I get Fluconazole?
A: There are many sources online.You can search for Fish Fluconazole and find it.

Q: How much Fluconazole do I use?
A: The suggested dose is one SINGLE dose in the amount of 20mg per gallon of water. There are reefers who are experimenting with using 10mg per gallon right now, but none with completing the 1st "round".

Q: Do I do a WC before treatment?
A: Yes. It would be a good idea as the treatment is for 14-21 days(some GHA can take around 4 weeks) and expect an increase in nutrients.

Q: How do I prepare the the medication?
A: I have noticed with the capsules it is very tough opening them without crushing the capsule. This is what I did. Use a razor blade and cut off the rounded end of the large outer half of the capsule. Then you can very easily pour the contents out into a glass of RODI water or tank water. The amount of water doesnt matter, but make it enough to be able to mix the med up. The med isnt very soluble, but mix it up best you can. Preferably dose at night when fish are asleep. Then pour the entire dose into the DT, or sump. Some have put it into their sump socks. I dosed directly into the DT.

Q: How long is the treatment?
A: 14-21 days.Some GHA may take a little longer.Longer treatments have been run without any problems so if you want to continue your treatment past the 3 weeks it will be fine.We have tanks continuously running on a low dose of Fluconazole for a year now with no ill effects.

Q: Do I remove my carbon?
A: Yes.

Q: Do I remove my skimmer cup?
A: Its suggested for at least the first few days if not the entire treatment remove your cup. If you pull your cup you may continue to run the skimmer, or turn the skimmer down as to not allow the skim to enter the cup. You do not want to remove the med.

Q: Do I take my ATS offline?
A: Yes. Completely sanitize it, and reintroduce it after all the bryopsis is 100% gone.

Q: Do I take my bio reactor offline?
A: No.

Q: Do I take my GFO offline?
A: No GFO will not remove the meds.It will also help to remove the po4 from dying algae.

Q: Do I continue to dose H2O2?
A: Yes. It will not interact with this med.

Q: Do I continue to dose Vibrant?
A: Yes. This SHOULD not interact this med. It may help to dose Vibrant as it will assist in NO3 export.

Q: Do I continue to dose colors, alk, calcium, and magnesium?
A: Yes.

Q: Should I change my lighting?
A: No.

Q: If I take my carbon reactor, or any other equipment off line/out of the tank, do I just put them back into the system after treatment?
A: No. Do not reintroduce the algae. It would be best to sterilize any equipment and throw away old media for reactors.

Q: Is it ok to take out my chaeto, or other algae's then put back after treatment?
A: No. this may reintroduce the algae. Leave the macros in the tank.

Q: Do I take my carbon reactor offline?
A: Yes.

Q:Should I stop using Purigen during treatment?
A:Yes.

Q: Do I take my UV Sterilizer offline?
A: No. At first it was thought that the UV would break down the meds but further testing has shown that it doesn't seem to effect the treatment enough to remove it.

Q: Do I do a WC during treatment?
A: No. Unless it cannot be avoided and a WC needs to be done to save life.If you perform a wc then replace the meds with the fresh saltwater.

Q: Will Fluconazole kill my chaetomorpha or other beneficial maco's?
A: Some users have reported some macro algae loss during the treatment but most have not.We are not seeing any wide spread death in macros so it's more of a judgement call on your part.

Q: Will Fluconazole kill the parasitic algae known to burrow through LPS corals?
A: This is currently being researched.

Q: What other nuisance algae's will be killed by Fluconazole?
A: Fluconazole kills the green algae Derbesia also known as GHA. It seems that GHA takes longer to kill than the bryopsis but it still dies. It does not kill Bubble algae.

Q: When do I do a WC?
A: After treatment has completed you will go back to your normal running system. Do a WC as your NO3/PO4 levels may be high from a lot of dead algae.

NCreefguy and Stevo


This treatment has been a huge success.For so many years we have had to deal with this terrible algae. Well now we can finally say that beating Bryopsis is a reality. No more tearing down your tanks. No more endless hours of pulling and picking at this mess. Fluconazole has made the eradication of Bryopsis from our tanks quick,easy and painless.Please let everyone you know in the reefing community about this treatment. The more people who know,the better.

Thank you to everyone who has been and continues to help and contribute in the thread. R2R has the best reefing community around!!!

Special Note: @Jose Mayo MD is the person from Brazil that discovered the actions of Fluconazole on algae. His discovery is the reason there are so many happy reefers today and will continue to be. Here are a couple of posts explaining his findings.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/b...sing-fluconazole.285096/page-224#post-4205834

Thank you very much Mr. Mayo for your work,research and continued help with this treatment.You are a tremendous asset to the reefing community.


NCreefguy

I simply added an emerald crab to my tank. I acclimated him and then placed him right on the bryopsis and he began eating right away. Next morning all the bryopsis is gone completely. Maybe jsut add a few crabs

 

[ScottB]

thank you, it doesn’t look like bryopsis looking at it again. We “diagnosed” it here on the forum, I have very little experience so it happens.

I heard GHA doesn’t have roots, in a sense that its easy to scrub it off, but this one I have is actually very hard to scrub it off. Could it be something else maybe?

Not sure I would describe it as "easy" to scrub off. Some folks have success with removing the rock, tearing off what you can, squirting the leftover algae with hydrogen peroxide, letting it bubble a few minutes and then placing back in the tank.

 

[Marc2952]

Not sure I would describe it as "easy" to scrub off. Some folks have success with removing the rock, tearing off what you can, squirting the leftover algae with hydrogen peroxide, letting it bubble a few minutes and then placing back in the tank.

Man i just checked my tank and due to maintaining higher nutrients i just noticed a small patch of bryopsis again smh lol of its not the dinos its back to this, i am really debating on using fluconazole again as it did cause my dinos to come back. Im qlso dealing with red bugs on my acros so im thinking of what step to take first here.

 

[anddak]

Not sure I would describe it as "easy" to scrub off. Some folks have success with removing the rock, tearing off what you can, squirting the leftover algae with hydrogen peroxide, letting it bubble a few minutes and then placing back in the tank.

I am seriously considering this move. Can you tell me more about the hydrogen peroxide? Where can I buy? What concentrate? Thank you

 

[ScottB]

I am seriously considering this move. Can you tell me more about the hydrogen peroxide? Where can I buy? What concentrate? Thank you

Amazon or Walmart carry it. Different people recommend different concentrations. I have no personal experience using H2O2, but it is a very common tool for knocking back GHA. Google it a bit; there are thousands of posts here on it and I would recommend a bit of research first.

Do take care not to exceed the standard rule of 1ml / 10 gallons for a given treatment. It is a very effective oxidizer and you don't want to shake up your biome too much. Just wait a day or two before treating again.

 

[anddak]

Amazon or Walmart carry it. Different people recommend different concentrations. I have no personal experience using H2O2, but it is a very common tool for knocking back GHA. Google it a bit; there are thousands of posts here on it and I would recommend a bit of research first.

Do take care not to exceed the standard rule of 1ml / 10 gallons for a given treatment. It is a very effective oxidizer and you don't want to shake up your biome too much. Just wait a day or two before treating again.

Thanks! I pulled out all the rocks and gave it a good scrub. I treat them removed from the tank. Should I dose the tanks as well, what do you think?

 

[ScottB]

Thanks! I pulled out all the rocks and gave it a good scrub. I treat them removed from the tank. Should I dose the tanks as well, what do you think?

There are some very experienced reefers who swear by H2O2 dosing for all kinds of tank ailments, but I am not one of them.

 

[X-37B]

My GHA experience.
I dosed algaefix every 3 days for 6 doses or 18 days.
Then 1/2 dose fluconazole.
Algae was easy to pic off at day 18. After 1 week of fluconazole all algae dead.
Stopped algaefix at day 18.
No loss of any coral, fish, inverts.
Carbon back on after 3 days of fluconazole and never turned off skimmer.
Shut off carx as alk started to increase.
Carx back on after 1 week as alk started to drop.
Worked very well for me.
I only had gha.
Will let it run for 2 more weeks then a small water change of 10 gal on my 120.

 

[Brent.Willmers]

Hi

Thanks for your write up on how to tackle bryopsis algae. It really is helpful with my fight on the stuff.

I just had some additional questions if you don’t mind. As I’m new to reef tanks this is something a bit out of my comfort and knowledge level. So hopefully you or someone could shed some light on this.

1) Do I continue to use Zeolite for No3 control
2) Do I continue to add all the additives like aminos, vitamins etc. (I dose 3 part with trace)
3) I also dose Vibrant in my system could I supplement it with H2O2 and how would I do this or would it be beneficial at all to help kill off bryopsis or other algae.
I have seen tiny spots of bubble algae.
I also have spots of red cyano, which I’ve read could be an after effect of Vibrant.

My system is basic
315L mixed reef
Pentair 40W UV filter
Over powered skimmer
Parameters are
Alk 7.9-8.1dkh
Mag 1350
Cal 440
Po4 0.01
No3 under 4ppm
Temp 24.5°C

Weekly water changes 30-40%
Tank is just on 1 year old

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[TheReefArchitect]

@NCreefguy I'm currently gearing up to start my first dosage of Fluco. I'm opting for the lower dosage rate of 20mg so if i'm right I need to be looking at dosing 620mg on my 31G nano.

The tank in question is only a few weeks old, I did however downsize from a larger tank and condense everything into the nano. Existing water & media were used with new rock & sand. I knew I had bryopsis from noticing it a while ago, but chose to wait until i had swapped tanks.

My concern is the no water change part of the procedure; mainly because the tank is 'immature' the levels of Phosphate & nitrate aren't 100% stable. Should i look into waiting until the tank is a little more established? I'm not overrun with bryopsis at the moment so should i wait unti its a little more aggressive?

With this thread being a few years old how are the tanks doing long term? Did you see a return of bryopsis?

 

[Marc2952]

Dosed fluco again since some bryopsis popped up, same dose as before but this time i got some casualties. Only one of my sps seems to be in trouble. All parameters are as stable as before. Been dosing phosphate and nitrates as before since not even that has elevated even though its been 2 days since i added the fluconazole. I guess some sps really dont like that stuff.