first use of Fluconasole

[Ron Reefman]

Algae needs light to grow, the faster it grows the fast it dies with fluconazole. Turn your white(and red if have it)--- UP---. You should start to see results by the end of the of the first week. Pictures of about half of how bad my GHA became,and same spot now. Oh vibrant also killed my coralline algae.

What an interesting take. I never would have thought of it that way. Thanks!

 

[tnw50cal]

I would have never thought of it neither. I read it here on the R2R forum and the guy who posted it was right--turn your lights up like twice the white light your using now.

 

[X-37B]

Well after reading the last few post on turn the light up I went back and checked my logs.
Seems I went from 8T5's to 2 250 watt MH 2 days after my fluconazole treatmemt.
No ramp up either.
Full on for 9 hours just like the T5's.
Bring on the light, lol.

 

[Ron Reefman]

I treated my 90g DT with the 'normal' amount of Fluconazole (1mg/10g) 4 days ago. I can't say I've seen a real difference in the nuisance algae yet, but I think it's too soon really.

However, it seems the diatom algae that coats the glass is struggling. I clean the class every couple of weeks (or when the mood strikes me... or when Elaine tells me I have to... which ever comes first... ;Hilarious;Hilarious). Anyway, when I loaded up on snails of various types from our Keys snorkel trip and Bunche Beach dip netting visit, the diatom coat has been slower to develop.

When I added the Fluconazole the tank had a light coat of diatoms. Today would be my typical 2 week glass cleaning. But there is no diatom coating on the glass this morning?

I'm going to assume (for now) that the Fluconazole has temporarily taken care of the diatom algae. Anybody else ever use Fluconazole and see a similar reaction?

Can you tell I'm nervous about having added a chemical into my tank that is suppose to kill something in the tank and leave most everything else OK?

 

[Jman76]

I had the same reaction with the glass. But I didn't see noticeable results on the algae until around day 10. It will start to turn almost grey/white. I did have to do a follow up dose around 14 days. By day 30 was spotless. Never saw a negative response from coral or fish. Nutrients did bottom out. I ended up dosing a little N/P just to avoid zero.

 

[ScottB]

Algae needs light to grow, the faster it grows the fast it dies with fluconazole. Turn your white(and red if have it)--- UP---. You should start to see results by the end of the of the first week. Pictures of about half of how bad my GHA became,and same spot now. Oh vibrant also killed my coralline algae.

Twin50 makes a solid point. For algae to be completely killed it needs to be lit. The fluconazole messes with the plants cell walls only during photosynthesis. Anything sheltered/shaded won't be killed.

As to changing your light settings, I certainly get the objective but would have to keep a very close eye on any SPS. There is already an (anecdotal) 1:20 chance major SPS damage with this treatment. So weigh the risks.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Today is day 5 and overnight I can see a big change in my Bryopsis crop. My best guess is about 60% has just disappeared. I had tufts of it on my return loc-line plumbing and it's almost gone! The Bryopsis on my rocks is well over 50% gone. I had some growing in between stalks of a candy cane coral. Now it's about 2/3 it's original height and the top of it that was sticking out from between the heads looks... kind of melted. And that part blew off with one puff of water from a turkey baster.

Right now, I'm a happy camper.

I have not seen any other visible damage to anything else in the tank, including a fairly new tube anemone.

One person (a trusted and reef savvy friend) did tell me that Fluconazole kills some of the bacteria in the tank. But nobody else ever mentioned it. Anybody have thoughts one way or the other?

 

[Ron Reefman]

It's been about 4 weeks since I treated the DT with Fluconazole. A few days ago I did a 20g water change on a 110g system. Today I'll do another 20g change. They suggest a 30% so I'll do 2 at 20g each.

I'm happy to report that as far as I can see, without moving rocks, the Bryopsis is gone. And as advertised, it appears to have had no effect on any of the livestock. And I have a pretty wide variety of livestock.

I've had a couple of interesting side effects. My glass stays clean longer. I now scrape coraline algae off rather than diatoms. And when I did the first water change in the DT, I took the old DT water and did a 50% water change in the 16g RFA breeding tank. I was having issues with dinos on the black sand and wave makers. Over the next few days the dinos were letting go of the sand and floating on the surface. My skimmer which is an in-tank skimmer would get clogged with dinos and I would use a fine net to pull out all the debris. I had to do that several times a day for several days. But now the dinos are gone?

So here is what I'm thinking... or wondering... would a small dose of Fluconazole in a reef tank on a regular basis, help keep algae other than Bryopsis from getting started? Rather than the 10 mg to 20 mg dose per 10 gallons for Bryopsis, maybe a 5 mg per 10g or even a 1 mg per 10g could prove useful. Although now that I think about it, it might have bad effects on macro algae in the refugium for those of us who have refugiums or ATS systems.

 

[Adamantium]

It's been about 4 weeks since I treated the DT with Fluconazole. A few days ago I did a 20g water change on a 110g system. Today I'll do another 20g change. They suggest a 30% so I'll do 2 at 20g each.

I'm happy to report that as far as I can see, without moving rocks, the Bryopsis is gone. And as advertised, it appears to have had no effect on any of the livestock. And I have a pretty wide variety of livestock.

I've had a couple of interesting side effects. My glass stays clean longer. I now scrape coraline algae off rather than diatoms. And when I did the first water change in the DT, I took the old DT water and did a 50% water change in the 16g RFA breeding tank. I was having issues with dinos on the black sand and wave makers. Over the next few days the dinos were letting go of the sand and floating on the surface. My skimmer which is an in-tank skimmer would get clogged with dinos and I would use a fine net to pull out all the debris. I had to do that several times a day for several days. But now the dinos are gone?

So here is what I'm thinking... or wondering... would a small dose of Fluconazole in a reef tank on a regular basis, help keep algae other than Bryopsis from getting started? Rather than the 10 mg to 20 mg dose per 10 gallons for Bryopsis, maybe a 5 mg per 10g or even a 1 mg per 10g could prove useful. Although now that I think about it, it might have bad effects on macro algae in the refugium for those of us who have refugiums or ATS systems.

It’s an interesting idea, as I’ve had good luck with it, as well, but you have to remove carbon and ion-bonding compounds for it to work. I run carbon, purigen, and Purit in my system, all of which would have to go.

 

[ScottB]

It's been about 4 weeks since I treated the DT with Fluconazole. A few days ago I did a 20g water change on a 110g system. Today I'll do another 20g change. They suggest a 30% so I'll do 2 at 20g each.

I'm happy to report that as far as I can see, without moving rocks, the Bryopsis is gone. And as advertised, it appears to have had no effect on any of the livestock. And I have a pretty wide variety of livestock.

I've had a couple of interesting side effects. My glass stays clean longer. I now scrape coraline algae off rather than diatoms. And when I did the first water change in the DT, I took the old DT water and did a 50% water change in the 16g RFA breeding tank. I was having issues with dinos on the black sand and wave makers. Over the next few days the dinos were letting go of the sand and floating on the surface. My skimmer which is an in-tank skimmer would get clogged with dinos and I would use a fine net to pull out all the debris. I had to do that several times a day for several days. But now the dinos are gone?

So here is what I'm thinking... or wondering... would a small dose of Fluconazole in a reef tank on a regular basis, help keep algae other than Bryopsis from getting started? Rather than the 10 mg to 20 mg dose per 10 gallons for Bryopsis, maybe a 5 mg per 10g or even a 1 mg per 10g could prove useful. Although now that I think about it, it might have bad effects on macro algae in the refugium for those of us who have refugiums or ATS systems.

Good to hear it worked out so well for you. Your experience is a common one. There is the 1 in 20 that really get hammered -- particularly acropora -- but most come through fine. Thanks for noting the side effects; interesting.

As to maintenance dosing, it is actually a thing. There are some vendors that continually dose to maintain a constant level of fluconazole in their grow-out systems. Kinda cool. Helps keep bryopsis out of our systems.