Fluconazole and bryopsis

[Dave MN Nano]

I am using Reef Flux (Fluconazole) to get rid of bryopsis.  I am on day 12 of the 14 day treatment. I used per instructions. Bryopsis still going strong. What do I do next? Water change and try again? Wait longer to change water? Try something else like Vibrant????

[Pjanssen]

I had great success with Fluconozol on my bryopsis years ago. I don't remember what I did exactly, but I would not give up. It has not weakened at all, or started turning white? I'll see if I ca find my thread about it, but I know there are several reefers that have used it and journaled it.

[Dave MN Nano]

Mine has not turned white. Getting longer and thicker. 

[Tired]

What dosage are you using in what size tank? 

 

Where did you get the fluconazole? Any chance you got scammed somehow? 

 

Do you have carbon running? Any filtration materials other than just some floss? 

 

Have you done any water changes? 

 

Post a pic. Maybe it's not bryopsis.

[ninjamyst]

Fluconazole worked for me.  Killed off bryopsis and GHA.  But then bubble algae exploded....

[Dave MN Nano]

I used Reef Flux. Got it from my LFS. I have a 20 gallon long tank so I estimate 15 gallons of water. I used 1.5 capsules (1 capsule per 10 gallons) per instructions. I have not done a water change yet. Day 13 now. My nutrient levels are still ok - about 5 ppm nitrates and 0.06 ppm phosphate. I took the carbon out of my tank and kept my phosphate filtration material in, per instructions. I have floss and Acurel phosphate reducing pad for filtration right now. I really haven't seen any negative effects on fish or inverts. Unfortunately not much negative effects on bryopsis either.

Thinking about doing a 10 gallon water change and putting in 10 gallons of fresh saltwater and another capsule (1 per 10 gallons).

[SaltyGallon]

Worked great for me too. Definitely don't give up, it took me a good 3-4 weeks to be fully bryopsis free and was very quick when it finally started working. When its very entrenched it can take longer, and I even found I needed multiple doses over time just to clear up regrowth from old 'roots'. 

 

Perhaps increase the dose a tad? Do you run a skimmer/is it offline?

[Dave MN Nano]

No skimmer.

[Tired]

Vibrant will do serious damage to your biodiversity and can harm corals. Keep on with the Fluconazole for a couple more weeks, it's comparatively much more gentle and tends to just hurt the bryopsis at first. It breaks down the anti-predator defenses of the algae, allowing snails and such to eat it.

[Dave MN Nano]

17 days since I started floconazole - Reef Flux. Bryopsis is much bigger. Thriving????? Stay the course??? It really looks like it's not working and I would like to get this thing kicked before it takes over.

[Dave MN Nano]

23 days on reef flux - fluconazole. No improvement, in fact bryopsis is much bigger. It’s probably actually turf algae. Does not look like small leaves. More like hair, but very tough. Does not pull out of rocks. Did a 1/3 water change today. Put carbon filtration back in. Dosed Vibrant. Gonna do 1 ml per 10 gallons 2x per week. This stuff is getting out of hand. All my fish and corals are great but this algae is getting ugly

[Dave MN Nano]

Still at 5 ppm nitrates and 0.06 phosphate. 

[ninjamyst]

i think u r right....that looks too thick to be bryopsis or GHA  Can you manually pull them off the rock?

[Dave MN Nano]

No. I would pull it off if I could. Very tough stuff almost impossible to pull off. 

[Murphs_Reef]

Spot treatment will knock it down..  

 

[growsomething]

For some reason my crabs will begin munching on my h202 spot treated bryopsis within a day after treatment.  It makes it palatable somehow.

[mcarroll]

I know I'm late to the party, but you didn't post pics until the end of the thread anyway – that's hair algae, not Bryopsis.  

 

And it's only a couple of small patches - hardly even a real outbreak yet.  🙂

 

I wish there was more GOOD advice on the chemical you chose.  It seems like guidance to use it and that it's perfect is all the info that can be found.   Makes me a little sad at the state of our hobby that sketchy chem's like this get such bold promotion...that was a very 1950's-1970's "better living thru chem" point of view that became outmoded in the 1980's.   Sadder to me still that most of the users of the chem. are newbs that can't be expected to know better.  (The folks "old enough to know better" who have used it know who they are!)

 

A) you should remove the chemicals from your water as comprehensively as you can and hit this the traditional way that green algae is taken care of

B) remove the cause(s)

C) implement the fixes

 

Easy as A-B-C!

 

"A" you can "supposedly" do with activated carbon, but I'd do as much as you can with water changes.

 

"B", from the pic I'm guess the problem is simply that your cleanup crew (including you, the #1 member of your CUC) was asleep at the wheel....nothing more than that.  (Corals seem to look good.)  

 

"C" Make sure you're in there removing the lion's share of that algae – snails can't eat it once it grows large.  (All they have to eat with is lips and a tongue....no proper teeth....so they only eat baby algae – new growth.  Make sure you have enough snails to keep the algae mowed down.   When you hand-pull anything (down to their level) and it re-grows, then you might need more snails.

 

On 8/21/2021 at 9:22 AM, Dave MN Nano said:

No. I would pull it off if I could. Very tough stuff almost impossible to pull off. 

Then you're trying too hard.  🙂   

 

But seriously, it's you vs a strand of algae.  I don't wanna hear "can't" I wanna hear some creativity!

 

Ok for real serious...

 

Try grabbing just a few strands of algae RIGHT BY THE ROOTS.  It'll come out, I promise.  Grab a single strand at a time if need be!  (Won't get to that extent.)

 

Keep a small dish of fresh water to put the algae in when you pull it out...and rinse your fingers so you don't re-add little bits of algae to the tank.

 

Work in small areas at any given time (like a couple of square inches at most) and finish that area completely so that you can see your progress.  If you work a little all over the tank just grabbing the hunks of algae that "jump out at you", there can be so much algae leftover when you're done that you'll wonder if you made any progress at all.

 

The following vid does a good job showing how to get hair algae out of your tank.  (Ignore the product recommendations.....unique to his tank problems.  You're just looking at his algae removal method....and snail advice.)