Stupid but viable question?

[magsj387]

So, I've been battling bryopsis for some time now and have tried numerous things; cuc, tangs, phos-ban, chemi-pure, skimmer upgrade, macro in sump, manual removal no light even...but to no avail it has continue to thrive and flourish in my main tank and unfortunately claimed a few corals in the process. I've heard of peroxide and vodka dosing, which is where I'm at now and would like to try...but here in lies the question. Will this effect my cheato, calerpa, and red macros in my sump, I would have to assume so? I have gone to some extent to produce and collect some of them and I'd hate to take them out in the process! So I'm sure this has been discussed but haven't seem to found any discussion on effects of treatments on "beneficial algae"

 

 

My tank, looks a bit different obviously after losing coral and what not...

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=270545

[ms.alice]

I don't know if this is helpful or not, but you can spot-treat (using a syringe) nasty algae with diluted peroxide on regular freshwater plants and it won't hurt them any. It's possible that it's the same with macroalgaes. Can you take out a bit of chaeto and test it? That's what I would do.

[Reef Miser]

H2O2 is the way to go. If you take the effected rocks out and spray them with peroxide and let them sit out of the tank for a couple of minutes, and put them back in the tank you should be fine with keep the macros you want alive. As an extra safety measure, you could rinse the H2O2 off with tank water before you put it back in the tank.

 

Peroxide is the only thing that gave me the upper hand against bryopsis. check out my thread

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=268706

 

I don't recommend dosing the whole tank. That would probably hurt the algae you want to keep.

[johnmaloney]

Magnesium sulfate, Kent Tech M, Epsom Salt dosing is another option for bryopsis pennata, many people have had success with it. You have to keep it pretty high 1500+ usually for some time (weeks), red macros would likely handle the changes better than the green, I guess it would depend on the species. What reds do you have? I have heard either way with chaeto and caulerpa. Sometimes it is the speed of the change that can cause the to go sexual, and I suspect some of those hobbyists had low ph and alk jump when they started doing other things and the like. Chaeto can be tolerant of a lot of things but large ph/alk changes dont seem to be one of them. Caulerpa isnt at all tolerant of fast changes, and some species will go sexual when quickly in response to a sudden change in the tank, even if it is kept within otherwise "normal" parameters. That is why it has that reputation for dying out of the blue, unless of course you are trying to get rid of it. In either event, that option is available and you would probably only lose the caulerpa. The treatment is effective on Bryopsis pennata, there have been a lot of success stories with it, (mostly using Kent Tech M, but some with Epsom Salt too), you may want to check it out.

 

Vodka dosing is to reduce nutrients to the tank, it would limit the beneficial algae from growing because they need the nutrients too. It is more like another line of nitrate filtration, like your chaeto, rather than an algaecide. It would help to curb the growth of all algae in the tank.

 

Peroxide works as a dip like mentioned there are also some commercial algaecide dip products I believe. Algae fix I think is one, there are a few others out there.

 

Finally, if there is nothing on the rocks worth saving you can also microwave them, it causes the cells and even the spores to rupture, no algae would come back from that rock later on.

 

Well that is a lot of rambling for one day, hope it works out.

[brandon429]

based on that amount of infestation the decorative macros are an incidental loss compared to infestation of the whole system, Id peroxide it but yes my friend Kathryn told me her red macros were lost even with a spot treatment we always recommend, she noted even the residual that got back into the tank caused death of the red titan macro/ but I like the idea of treating in another container and then rinsing if that's the best that can be done. if it was my tank, Id drain/treat the individual spots as listed and just replace whatever dieoff occurs. bryopsis is bad news, its my top priority to rid even above preserving decorative macros. I do believe magnesium support helps prevent/cure it, its just slower than peroxide. both ways are great