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Coral Vue Hydros

Is this bryopsis or GHA?


mountaineer

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New tank, a month old. The pictures aren't great but my (slightly) better camera was charging. Am I in trouble? I have nerites, dwarf and Florida ceriths, and nassarius in the tank, but nothing comes near the long filaments except for my lone hitchhiker dwarf blue hermit.

 

Oh God, please let it not be bryopsis....It is long and feathery, soft to the touch, and has feathery filaments, like a fern. A dull green. When you take it out of the water, it lies down -- not bristley or bushy at all.

 

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The only thing it could've come in on was about 5 lbs of "cured" rock from the LFS. At the time, I didn't see anything but a little coralline on it.

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Definitely bryopsis.

 

I recommend peroxide but you can also treat with tech-m, or the BRS magnesium that has both magnesium sulfate and magnesium chloride.

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Ugh...what a way to start the hobby. Thankfully, I have no corals or inverts except for the CUC.

 

I was going to get my first fish on Saturday. Should I hold off and treat the bryopsis first? Or can I treat w/ peroxide or tech-m while keeping the fish?

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SInce you have nothing in there, I would pull all the rock, pat it dry with some paper towels, spray it with some straight H2O2 in a spray bottle. Wait about 5 or 10 minutes and put it back in the tank. Do this a few times over the course of a week or two and you should be able to get it all.

 

You can alternately completely dip the rock in H2O2 for 5 minutes but it could cause a cycle.

 

Personally I would wait on adding anything. It's much easier to treat in a clean tank with very low nutrients.

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SInce you have nothing in there, I would pull all the rock, pat it dry with some paper towels, spray it with some straight H2O2 in a spray bottle. Wait about 5 or 10 minutes and put it back in the tank. Do this a few times over the course of a week or two and you should be able to get it all.

 

You can alternately completely dip the rock in H2O2 for 5 minutes but it could cause a cycle.

 

Personally I would wait on adding anything. It's much easier to treat in a clean tank with very low nutrients.

Thanks, Jestep. One question: Do I rinse off the H202 before I return the rock to the tank? (regarding the spray bottle method)

 

Do I also need to spray down my equipment? Or will treating the rock take care of it?

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You shouldn't need to rinse but a dunk in a bucket of SW wouldn't hurt. It's not going to hurt the tank to put it straight back in though.

 

If you don't see any on the substrate or equipment you're probably ok at this point. If it's been in the tank for a while or if you scrub it, then it tends to spread everywhere. Personally, I'd wait on the equipment unless you see some starting to grow there.

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You shouldn't need to rinse but a dunk in a bucket of SW wouldn't hurt. It's not going to hurt the tank to put it straight back in though.

 

If you don't see any on the substrate or equipment you're probably ok at this point. If it's been in the tank for a while or if you scrub it, then it tends to spread everywhere. Personally, I'd wait on the equipment unless you see some starting to grow there.

Thanks. Do you think my CUC will come through this okay? I worry about the H202 killing off the beneficial bacteria, and my cycle going crazy...

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H2O2 will bounce against bryopsis. I tried 35%. No go.

 

Go the Live Aquaria. Buy their make your own CUC and buy only lettuce nudibranchs (sea slugs).

 

That works.

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H2O2 will bounce against bryopsis. I tried 35%. No go.

 

Go the Live Aquaria. Buy their make your own CUC and buy only lettuce nudibranchs (sea slugs).

 

That works.

 

Mine eventually went away with H2O2, kept coming back with tech-m though. Haven't had it for a year or two now.

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I don't understand why everyone freaks out when pest algae grows. Once the tank matures, the stuff goes away. I had bryopsis for the first couple months on my rocks. Probably because they were leaching PO4. I didn't rinse them or anything. Eventually I got the PO4 under control, got my Mg inline, and the tank matured a bit more and the stuff died out. I always thought it looked nice waving in the current. Like a lush green carpet. Just don't let the stuff die in the tank or else it will release the nutrients back into the water column. Pull it out when it gets big and starts to look like it might die soon.

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Mine eventually went away with H2O2, kept coming back with tech-m though. Haven't had it for a year or two now.

When I get an ORP probe hooked up, I may be more aggressive with it.

 

 

Honestly bryopsis is great for lowering nutrients in your tank, better than anything.

 

I even played with the idea of designing and making a Bryopsis Nutrient Scrubber. May still make one, it would be easy and efficient. Farkwar's BNS.

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petkingdom619

I remember seeing somewhere that nudibranchs don't live very long in a tank. I've seen some cool ones. Is this true?

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Depends.

 

Ive had the all black ones live a long time.

 

Zoa eating nudis will thrive as long as you keep feeding them zoas and palys.

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I'm in the same boat as you OP, I even made a thread in the desease section but basically no one replied. I was ready to move all my livestock in a new bigger tank when I notice bryopsis in the new cycling tank. What Im going to do is trying the Kent techM, heavily scrubbing the rocks in a bucket, picking up dying stuff in the tank (i got it growing on walls too) and lights off for 2 weeks. I know how you feel, Im pretty depressed too since I found that pest and I was ready to restart that tank from scratches but then I read many posts of people successfully treating bryopsis and I decided to give it a go. I don't really wanna throw away 400$ worth of live rocks :(

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I'm in the same boat as you OP, I even made a thread in the desease section but basically no one replied. I was ready to move all my livestock in a new bigger tank when I notice bryopsis in the new cycling tank. What Im going to do is trying the Kent techM, heavily scrubbing the rocks in a bucket, picking up dying stuff in the tank (i got it growing on walls too) and lights off for 2 weeks. I know how you feel, Im pretty depressed too since I found that pest and I was ready to restart that tank from scratches but then I read many posts of people successfully treating bryopsis and I decided to give it a go. I don't really wanna throw away 400$ worth of live rocks :(

Good luck to you, bud. Let me know how it goes. Maybe we can compare notes. How big is your tank? Mine's just 27 gallons. I got really down about it last night, but my wife talked me back from the ledge, lol. If there's a silver lining, it's that I don't have any corals and the livestock is light, so maybe it'll be easier to deal with.

 

I cut the lights a week ago, when I thought it was a big outbreak of GHA, and I must say, at least that has stopped its march. A friend is giving me a couple lettuce nudibranchs tomorrow...but I'm also gonna do chemical warfare on it.

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I'm upgrading from a 15g to a 40g breeder. My old 15g is going so well I don't want to take any risk moving everything over an infected tank. Let's say we're both lucky in a way, as we got this horrible pest without having to worry about the livestock... in my case the tank is almost empty, only live rocks and a few snails in it. This time I was just silly enough to buy the live rocks online instead of checking them out personally at my LFS as I usually do. I'll see how it goes with the kent tech-m, in the worst case scenario I'll just restart the tank from scratches. Good luck man, I'm sure there's a way out of it!

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Good luck to you, bud. Let me know how it goes. Maybe we can compare notes. How big is your tank? Mine's just 27 gallons. I got really down about it last night, but my wife talked me back from the ledge, lol. If there's a silver lining, it's that I don't have any corals and the livestock is light, so maybe it'll be easier to deal with.

 

I cut the lights a week ago, when I thought it was a big outbreak of GHA, and I must say, at least that has stopped its march. A friend is giving me a couple lettuce nudibranchs tomorrow...but I'm also gonna do chemical warfare on it.

 

Got to take the bad with the good. I guarantee it won't be the last challenge you have with a reef tank. Just stick with it, it's definitely worth it IMO.

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Got to take the bad with the good. I guarantee it won't be the last challenge you have with a reef tank. Just stick with it, it's definitely worth it IMO.

Thank you for that.

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When I get an ORP probe hooked up, I may be more aggressive with it.

 

 

Honestly bryopsis is great for lowering nutrients in your tank, better than anything.

 

I even played with the idea of designing and making a Bryopsis Nutrient Scrubber. May still make one, it would be easy and efficient. Farkwar's BNS.

 

I liked that idea aswell even in just the form of a fuge that has it growing... then a crazy high powered UV steri between it and the tank... I imagine results would be impressive.

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I turned my lights off for the past week and I started dosing kent tech-m for the past 3 days. The results are quite impressive, the bryopsis is basically disappearing by itself, im not even trying to remove it. I'll have to check how it goes once I start using the lights again tho, as it might grow back.

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Gonna follow along here.

 

I had some strands of bryopsis I manually removed in my old tank. Thought I was all clear, so I moved everything over when I set up a new tank. Now some more strands are showing up. I wanna get rid of it while it's not a big problem yet.

 

I have a lot of new dry rock in the tank, so I'm tempted to just take out the affected rock. But I'm scared about how the bio capacity of the tank will get affected. And even if I remove the rock with bryopsis, no way to tell it doesn't have "roots" in some other rocks.

 

And yeah, I'd say it's a good thing your tank hasnt been stocked much yet. Gives you more wiggle room in more aggressively dealing with this.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I turned my lights off for the past week and I started dosing kent tech-m for the past 3 days. The results are quite impressive, the bryopsis is basically disappearing by itself, im not even trying to remove it. I'll have to check how it goes once I start using the lights again tho, as it might grow back.

You may need to do a large water change to get remove the nutrients before you turn the lights back on. I think this is a new tank so stick with time and proper husbandry should help.

Good Luck

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EL CHUPACABRA

Just take the rocks out and put them in a strong bleach water solution, rinse well with tap water, then dunk in a bucket of rodi, and return to the tank. Then buy some declorinator and add it to the tank. Wha-lah.

 

I bleached and muratic acid washed all my rock before adding it to my in wall system. I called it a digital boot up. Now I suffer from zero po4 and an abundance of copepods, mysis shrimp colonies, and amphipods. Let your tank fully cycle, perhaps adding ammonia at the start, then go to you favorite LFS or neighborhood reefer (the one with the good looking tanks). Have them put some macro algae in a bag half full of tank water, shake the hell out of it, return algae to them, quickly take the water home and dump it in your tank. Repeat a few times and watch your tank Eco system spring to life. The acid washing opens up the pores in the rock to give additional safe havens for tiny creatures and dissolves po4 and other undesirables that have been bound to it surfaces.

 

Good luck. Kill it dead, then boot up properly.

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