Bryopsis - My experience with Fluconazole in a Triton system

PiscesPower · Apr 3, 2018

12 hours pre-fluconazole dosing, final bryopsis Confirmation made by R2R experts, see posts below

I have been trying to treat this nuisance algae with clean up crew. Urchins, even a Sea Hare with no success.
I want to confirm, before I treat with fluconazole, that it is in fact bryopsis. I've been pulling it manually and was thinking it was GHA. I had not really photographed it up close.

Thanks in advance.

**Read on to see the progression of my tank and total eradication of bryopsis in just over 7 days, using fluconazole**

saltyfilmfolks · Apr 3, 2018

Yes. Bryopsis. Nuke it.

Fwiw. It’s really an incredibly mild treatment. Kills bryopsis in days.

PiscesPower · Apr 3, 2018

saltyfilmfolks said:
Yes. Bryopsis. Nuke it.

Fwiw. It’s really an incredibly mild treatment. Kills bryopsis in days.

Thanks so much. I was pretty sure that's what it was. Preparing to nuke. Should I manually prune it back before adding the fluc?

saltyfilmfolks · Apr 3, 2018

Eh , you can. Some don’t.
Once mine started to die after about a week, I hit it with the toothbrush. Seemed to help.(and I laughed maniacally)
Def did help with and gha you May have.

Ligershark · Apr 3, 2018

make sure its getting direct sun light. personally if thats the only rock that has it id just toss it.

Jose Mayo · Apr 3, 2018

PiscesPower said:
I have been trying to treat this nuisance algae with clean up crew. Urchins, even a Sea Hare with no success.
I want to confirm, before I treat with fluconazole, that it is in fact bryopsis. I've been pulling it manually and was thinking it was GHA. I had not really photographed it up close.

Thanks in advance.

Yes, it is Bryopsis plumosa, as below:

Regards

Kremis · Apr 3, 2018

yep thats bryopsis

PiscesPower · Apr 6, 2018

UPDATED - DAY 4 of treatment

I am on day 4 of a 1800 mg dose fluconazole treatment for bryopsis on my 60g volume system (1200mg on Day 1 @ 0630 + 600mg on day 2 @2030).
My PO4 is doing great running GFO 0.008. NO3 I need to check again tonight and use the high scale, they are over the low range limit (I knew I should have used the high). The first day I went in a pulled some of the algae about 12 hr after adding the initial dose of fluconazole. After doing some reading I added another 600mg to the tank increasing the dose to 8mg/l or 30mg/gallon. I read articles suggesting 9 mg/l so I felt pretty comfortable with the dose. I am not advocating this dosage, this was my personal decision based on my own reading and decision making process.

No issues with corals, fish or inverts and the algae is melting away. I am in awe, you just have to love cell biology...

QUESTIONS:

What is the best way to deal with the nitrates in this situation? I run a Triton system and have a big refugium, but this die off is a bit much to for it to handle I'm sure. Don't want to just add things willy nilly. Filter floss in my media rack? Does this dissolve the algae or are there clumps of it needing to be removed? I can't really tell. I don't have a place for socks, as I have a new Triton style sump.
I'd like to put my skimmer back online tonight and was wondering if I should add another 200mg capsule in a few days to account for what is skimmed out??
Are there any recommendations for lighting and/or flow I should be considering?

Tuesday April 3rd - Before dosing

Day 4 of treatment of 8mg/l or 30mg/gallon - The algae is melting away. (I just flipped on the lights from total dark so the gonio is not open yet). I'll takes some additional pics tonight.

PiscesPower · Apr 6, 2018

Ligershark said:
make sure its getting direct sun light. personally if thats the only rock that has it id just toss it.

I wish that was the case. It’s pretty extensive. I would say 25% of my rock surfaces throughout the tank.

PiscesPower · Apr 7, 2018

UPDATED - Day 5 of Treatment

The algae continues to melt away. My only casualty has been the sea hare. Its been eating veggie sheets and gracelleria but last night I found it wedged under a rock with a emerald crab and a hermit crab going at it. I felt it best to pull it. It was unreactive. I feel bad, but I couldn't risk it nuking the tank that is already running a bit high on nitrate. That left me with a slight conundrum. I had put the skimmer back on a few hours earlier, going to turn it off again today, but I was concerned of anything toxic from the hare, but don't want to put carbon back online. Since the hare looked very newly dead I decided to take the risk and not put the carbon in. This morning all looks fine.

Here are a few pics. My hydras wouldn't connect this morning so there will be blue...

PiscesPower · Apr 8, 2018

UPDATED - Day 6 of Treatment

Well this is now day 6 of my fluconazole journey and I would estimate that 90 - 95% of the bryopsis is gone. I have not seen any other nuisance algae growing in its place.
Chaeto and Gracellaria in the fuge are doing fine. I had my skimmer off during the day yesterday, but put it back on last night. I will leave it on unless I decide to do an additional dose at some point. Here are some pics, that are not blue!

First let me put the rock with my Gonios in it. I think you can see the most dramatic change there.

Here are some others from around the tank. I did turn the pyramid shaped light and move the pectinia so they were getting better light exposure yesterday and it made a dramatic difference.

I just dropped some food in the tank so forgive the surface speckles

Jose Mayo · Apr 8, 2018

I think you took your tank back ...

Congratulations

PiscesPower · Apr 10, 2018

Update - Day 7 - Final entry unless things take a drastic turn...

I know one of the concerns with this method is the rapid death of the algae and the increase in nutrients. As my title says, I run a full Triton Method system. Today, 7.5 days after initial dosing of fluconazole 1800mg, and 99% eradication of bryopsis in my DT my H2O parameters are as followed.

Macroalgae (Chaeto and Gracelleria) are both growing. No new nuisance algae, cyano, diatoms etc...

pH - 8.04 via Apex (this is normal for me, with the CO2 scrubber, hoping adding a new Kessil h380 tomorrow to fuge will speed up macro growth and increase pH a bit more, it was in the 7.8 range)
Conductivity - 33.1
ORP stable at 350ish
Ca - 440 (Hanna)
Alk - 8.3 (Hanna)
Mg - 1400 (Saifert)
PO4 - 0.006 (ULR Hanna Phosphorus)
NO3 - 6 (Red Sea using High range)

I'm am calling this a success!!

PiscesPower · Apr 13, 2018

One last little tidbit. I have a small tuft of something, not sure whether it is bryopsis or not but its way in the back out of the light. Since I have been skimming, I added 400mg more of fluconazole and clamped an LED lamp onto the tank to get light right on that spot. Being in the light certainly sped up the other areas to die. I will do a water change (probably only 10%) this weekend, and send a Triton ICP test off as well.

I'm curious, at what rate the fluconazole will be removed from the tank on its own either through skimming and fish/coral/invert metabolism. I has a 30 hour half life in humans. Just curious.

Jose Mayo · Apr 13, 2018

PiscesPower said:
One last little tidbit. I have a small tuft of something, not sure whether it is bryopsis or not but its way in the back out of the light. Since I have been skimming, I added 400mg more of fluconazole and clamped an LED lamp onto the tank to get light right on that spot. Being in the light certainly sped up the other areas to die. I will do a water change (probably only 10%) this weekend, and send a Triton ICP test off as well.

I'm curious, at what rate the fluconazole will be removed from the tank on its own either through skimming and fish/coral/invert metabolism. I has a 30 hour half life in humans. Just curious.

In humans fluconazole is very poorly metabolized (processed), in fact it is eliminated unchanged, something in the stool and very much in the urine, so the "half-life" of 30 hours for elimination without transformation. In an aquarium its permanence is much longer, if no means of elimination is used, such as activated carbon, the skimmer and the like, since there is no other "excretory device" in the system, so it is possible to make a complete treatment with a single dose.

Regards

PiscesPower · Apr 13, 2018

Jose Mayo said:
In humans fluconazole is very poorly metabolized (processed), in fact it is eliminated unchanged, something in the stool and very much in the urine, so the "half-life" of 30 hours for elimination without transformation. In an aquarium its permanence is much longer, if no means of elimination is used, such as activated carbon, the skimmer and the like, since there is no other "excretory device" in the system, so it is possible to make a complete treatment with a single dose.

Regards

Thanks so much for the explanation.

Nancy

PiscesPower · May 5, 2018

IT'S BACK!!!

:mad:

Well, at 4 weeks after treatment I can see the start of the bryopsis coming back in some of the same places. I guess I didn't wait long enough to put carbon back in. Honestly, I did my first H2O change last weekend, and that was only because of ICP testing results. Going to dose again. I have a water change to do. I have had ChemiPure Blue in a reactor, I will pull that offline. My phos has been quite low, and there is not a lot of the bryopsis. So I'm not going to add GFO at this time. I have a fuge FULL of macros. Hopefully I can get this eradicated once and for all.

saltyfilmfolks · May 5, 2018

PiscesPower said:
IT'S BACK!!!

:mad:

Well, at 4 weeks after treatment I can see the start of the bryopsis coming back in some of the same places. I guess I didn't wait long enough to put carbon back in. Honestly, I did my first H2O change last weekend, and that was only because of ICP testing results. Going to dose again. I have a water change to do. I have had ChemiPure Blue in a reactor, I will pull that offline. My phos has been quite low, and there is not a lot of the bryopsis. So I'm not going to add GFO at this time. I have a fuge FULL of macros. Hopefully I can get this eradicated once and for all.

Where is the bryo re sprouting ?

What was your initial dose per gallon again please?

Was the chemipure in during the treatment ?

PiscesPower · May 5, 2018

saltyfilmfolks said:
Where is the bryo re sprouting ?

A few of the same places, no new places. My big main rock structure, mid-tank a few others, same as before.

What was your initial dose per gallon again please?

I actually dosed 30mg/g and then after 13 days, when I found some straggling on a rock that was away from direct light I put an additional 400mg. Skimmer had been back on for a week. I put carbon back online a few days after the addition of the 400mg. My DT is 60g.

Was the chemi pure in during the treatment ?