About to treat bryopsis with Magnesium, Help please:

[.Newman.]

This is a serious question as I'm concerned about a few points:

1. w/e is in Kent Tech Magnesium kills bryopsis but is it possible that chemi pure adsorbs it out of the water? Because last time i did a Magnesium nuking of my tank i rose the levels to 1700ppm by accident and the bryopsis showed no signs of change even after 2 weeks. I had my chemi pure in there at that treatment.

 

2. I want to keep the chemi pure in the tank because it takes out phosphate and w/e other food the bryopsis needs to survive, so ithought a combo of starving it and magnesium treatment will finish it, but my above point conflicts with this....

 

 

Does anyone know whats best to do when I'm treating with mag?

I do have chaeto in my tank so maybe I could remove the chemi pure and allow the chaeto to absorb the phosphate for the duration of treatment? but chaeto is less efficient that bryopsis at it anyway so I'm so confused about what to do lol.

 

someone please lend me some advice?

[ss21]

I tried the whole mag thing to treat the same problem with no success. So I tried another idea that lfs suggested. I bought a real big turbo snail and destroyed my problem. I do suggest making sure all your corals are secured. He'll doze everything.

[TheUnfocusedOne]

One thing to note is that high Mg levels can kill off your snails. Just something to keep in mind.

[.Newman.]

yes i realize all the risks. last time nothing bad happened, i already have a turbo snail (not the huge mexican cuz that wont fit in my tank lol, i have the astrea kind) and he's completely overgrown by bryopsis himself lmao! like his shell is a forest of bryo and thats really annoying.

 

Just to be safe that the treatment is working, I will be removing chemi pure for 2 weeks or so

 

I am about to do a huge 90% water change to clean out any nutrients prior to beginning treatment.

[molo]

I had to raise my mag up to 2000ppm before I saw any changes. It took about two weeks for the process to complete and I run chemipure and purigen as my filter medium. Nothing in my tank died and I had a coralline algae explosion.

[Degener8]

You should remove all carbon/chempur etc during treatment. I am not sure it there is any adverse effect to leaving them in but in general when your treating for something specific.. keeping things simple and targeting the problem are you best bets.

[.Newman.]

yes i was thinking that degener. and ill go that way.

 

2000ppm really? what mag test kit did you use? maybe it was inaccurate by a few 100ppms? cuz everywhere i read that magic number is 1600ppm mag. my redsea mag test kit i know must be inaccurate then cuz according to it i raised my mag last time to 1700ppm and nothing happened. plus it also tells me that my mag of my regular tank water is at 1500ppm mag lmao, there is no way my reef crystal salt would have that much to start with xD

[Degener8]

reef crystals at 1.026 is around 1300 standard mix (no 2 batches mat though) So take that into consideration. I figure you are under 1300 however because at 1300 si where the Mag is supposed to start reacting with the bryopsis and you should see it start to change a little.. 1500-1600 is ok to go up to how ever and should have relatively little effect other than dead bryopsis and slow snails..LOL

 

 

This was the scenario when I fought bryopsis a while back.

[.Newman.]

bryopsis combat has begun. I did the huge water change, and added enough mag to my tank to raise just short of 100ppm. will test mag tomorrow to see how much more i have to go. I added mag w/o testing because i take for granted my mag starts at around 1300ppm like you said, and i did not want to waste any time since this treatment has to be over before i go on vacation.

I'm guessing it will read about 1400ppm-1500ppm tomorrow.

[Bill Nye]

bryopsis combat has begun. I did the huge water change, and added enough mag to my tank to raise just short of 100ppm. will test mag tomorrow to see how much more i have to go. I added mag w/o testing because i take for granted my mag starts at around 1300ppm like you said, and i did not want to waste any time since this treatment has to be over before i go on vacation.

I'm guessing it will read about 1400ppm-1500ppm tomorrow.

 

Another thing to consider is that its not really the mag level that kills the bryopsis IMO. Its the amount of whatever proprietary substance kent adds to the tech-m that kills it. So im guessing the 1700 level is around when that substance reaches a high enough concentration to become effective.

[Reefmonster]

Just make sure not to raise Mg more 100ppm per day, or corals / snails could be adversly affected. I made that mistake once and some of my acros bleached.

[Derekcaudill]

I dont mean to hijack this thread but I am very interested in this conversation. Is there no other way to combat bryopsis? I have a small problem with it as well and I am doing 2-3 water changes a week at 5 gallons each in my BC29 and manually removing what I can see. It seems to just grow right on and below the surface of the sand. I do think the water changes are helping but VERY slowly.

[Bill Nye]

I dont mean to hijack this thread but I am very interested in this conversation. Is there no other way to combat bryopsis? I have a small problem with it as well and I am doing 2-3 water changes a week at 5 gallons each in my BC29 and manually removing what I can see. It seems to just grow right on and below the surface of the sand. I do think the water changes are helping but VERY slowly.

 

 

Bryopsis is the satan of pest algae. I have heard people say theyve left a rock with it in a bucket of salt water for months without light and the algae is still green.

[Degener8]

Turbo snails and kent tech M are the only 2 things I have ever heard of beating out bryopsis.

 

Turbos are hit and miss though.. depends if the ones you get have a hankering for Bryopsis.

 

Kent tech M when done at 1500+ ppm and for a long enough duration beats it about every time.

Personally when I was fighting bryopsis I did NO water changes for 45 days. Everything was totally healthy. No ammonia or nitrates registerable either Just have to manage your nutrients more closely

[.Newman.]

Ok so Red sea mag test kits are not good. Yesterday i checked the levels after my very first 100ppm dosage and they read 1800ppm lol. Just to remind everyone i changed out 90% of the water with new saltwater and i used reef crystal salt with RO/DI water to make it at 1.026 SG so that should have read just below 1300ppm +100ppm dosage so the reading should have been around 1400ppm. I added another dosage today, and after a few hours got readings that are off the chart with a brand new red sea mag test kit =/

So apparently my tank now has 2000+ppm of magnesium yet the bryopsis shows no change and my snails are fine and no coral shows stress.

 

Since my test kits suck, how does this plan sound?

 

1. since I started around 1300ppm mag or lower I plan on doing 4 dosings of around 100ppm of magnesium supplement. this in theory should put me around 1600ppm-1700ppm range which is enough to kill bryopsis.

2. so far ive done 2 dosings nothing has changed, so I plan on two more within the next two days.

 

3. if after I theoretically reach around 1600ppm mag, and I see no change in bryopsis (which is what i think will happen since it happened last time) SHOULD I KEEP DOSING? like maybe 1 or 2 more dosages just to be sure that I've given it all i've got?

 

thanks for your opinions guys..

[Steve-O21]

Check your salanity too. With magnesium cholride dosing in a small tank. Salinity will increase. Just a heads up. Iv'e done it and didn't realzie it right away. I'd go with plan two.

[.Newman.]

o no, it will? ok I checked and it rose to 1.026-7 so i took out a bit of water out of the tank. the ATO should lower the salinity back to normal, thanks for warning me!

[Steve-O21]

Not a problem. One doesn't think about it until it happens. Just keep and eye on it and you will be fine.