Jump to content
inTank Media Baskets

Second opinions please, is this Bryopsis?


Frag Factory

Is this Bryopsis?   

5 members have voted

  1. 1. Does this look like Bryopsis to you?

    • Yes
    • No, it's something else


Recommended Posts

Frag Factory

I have this stuff sprouting up in a new tank, all over my rock and in patches on my sandbed.

 

It came in on my snails, I thought it was Bryopsis so ordered some fluconazole online but before I dose I figured it would be a smart idea to get a second opinion.

 

Thoughts would be appreciated...

 

4d6505524fd2479fdff676424946a31d.thumb.jpg.a64791b5537f995e84ad9a628e88329d.jpg

Link to comment

It looks like Caulerpa Prolifera . If that is what it is I’d pull as much out of the tank as possible, before treatment. Also please use Chlorine Bleach on the removed Prolifera and any discard water, to keep it out of the environment, if you live near any coastal area.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Prolifera looks like a lot of little leaves. I'd say that's bryopsis, yes. Also, fluconazole isn't going to do any major harm to anything, so it's far from the worst thing to use quickly. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Frag Factory
4 hours ago, DSA65PRO said:

It looks like Caulerpa Prolifera . If that is what it is I’d pull as much out of the tank as possible, before treatment. Also please use Chlorine Bleach on the removed Prolifera and any discard water, to keep it out of the environment, if you live near any coastal area.

I've had this before in an old system many moons ago, it's 100% not Caulerpa but thanks for replying.

 

It's way too small (that stone it's attached to is less than 1/8")

 

1 hour ago, Tired said:

Prolifera looks like a lot of little leaves. I'd say that's bryopsis, yes. Also, fluconazole isn't going to do any major harm to anything, so it's far from the worst thing to use quickly. 

True, I'll dose the tank tomorrow. There doesn't seem to be any downside to using it that I've found.

 

I'll also dose brightwell magnesium too, may as well use it as it also seems to kill Bryopsis.

Link to comment

I would check your magnesium levels first, just in case. If they're already pretty middle-to-high, you'd probably want to avoid dosing. 

 

I dosed some fluconazole once because I mistook particularly branched hair algae for bryopsis (whoops), and nothing cared. Not even the hair algae. It's an antifungal, so that makes sense. IIRC it doesn't even directly harm the bryopsis- it just degrades its protections against the environment, letting the light and current beat it up, and letting your snails eat it. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Frag Factory
15 minutes ago, Tired said:

I would check your magnesium levels first, just in case. If they're already pretty middle-to-high, you'd probably want to avoid dosing. 

 

I dosed some fluconazole once because I mistook particularly branched hair algae for bryopsis (whoops), and nothing cared. Not even the hair algae. It's an antifungal, so that makes sense. IIRC it doesn't even directly harm the bryopsis- it just degrades its protections against the environment, letting the light and current beat it up, and letting your snails eat it. 

I test weekly, I'm already manually dosing aquaforest magnesium.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Looks like Bryopsis to me.

 

Please don't short-circuit basic troubleshooting – don't dose that medicine when it comes.

 

In general, algae proliferate because we create ideal conditions for them and then we do nothing (or too little) about the bloom when it happens.  That means all "pest" algae blooms are avoidable.

 

In most cases that means one or more of the following: that nutrient levels have recently spiked, that the CUC is too small or non-existent or that the reef keeper is being too hands-off.

 

So, don't do anything more until you've "treated" it like hair algae exactly as melev describes in this vid:

 

Dedicated and thorough manual pulling along with enhancement of your CUC at the same time will work.  In effect you "eat" what the cleanup crew will not, or cannot.  The cleanup crew keeps the areas you work on cleaned, so eventually another algae can grow there...probably coralline.

 

(Be glad you only have a 36 gallon to contend with....my last algae outbreak was across a 125 Gallon.  Be patient.  Work in small areas.  Be thorough.)

 

That should work for every algae, more or less.

 

If you're interested in being experimental beyond that, there are some Damsels known as algae eaters that may help.  If you can guarantee placement in a 6 foot tank within six months to a year, you could even try a VERY SMALL yellow tang to help in the short term.

 

Whatever you do, DO NOT try to starve this algae to death. (Or any algae, really.)  That will only make it even-less-palatable to your cleanup crew and won't likely slow down its growth significantly.  And it can provoke a bloom of an even worse type of algae.

 

So keep your NO3 levels and PO4 levels well within detectable range....5-10 ppm NO3 and ≥0.05 ppm PO4 would be decent maintenance targets/minimums.

 

 

Some things to consider in the new tank....maybe lights are more white or more red?  Or set to a higher intensity?  Along with the spike in nutrients when you transferred the livestock (and it's need for daily feedings) to the tank, lighting issues like these are probably the next biggest contributor to a potential algae problem.  

 

(Corals aren't natively high light critters....they're from the deep and probably have little or no native light-sensitivity.  Further, the dino's that corals host, which give corals photosynthesis, actually aren't that good at photosynthesis...possibly because photosynthesis is an inhereted (non-native) trait for the dino's as well.  At any rate, high light levels cause major stress to the dino...which is why these dino's take refuge inside a coral in the first place....and in turn why coral have developed all these colorful ways to look....all them are various ways of shielding their dino's from too much light.)

 

 

Link to comment
13 hours ago, Frag Factory said:

4d6505524fd2479fdff676424946a31d.thumb.jpg.a64791b5537f995e84ad9a628e88329d.jpg

BTW, that's pretty much what "regular hair algae" looks like at 600X magnification under a scope....the "frond" structure is very very similar, just much larger in the Bryopsis part of the "green hair algae" family.

 

Some of the articles I saved/commented on in the Bryopsis section on my blog might be indirectly interesting too.  

 

(Forget magnesium treatments completely....seems likely that the product in question that was once used for that had a specific contaminant in it that was toxic (or something) to Bryopsis.  It's been reformulated and no other Mg supplment has ever "performed" the same way.)

 

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recommended Discussions

×
×
  • Create New...