Many, many curse words
Posted 11/01/2012 at 03:41 PM by ACBlinky
I tell my son that reading is fun, but the reading I did last night wasn't fun at all. I love identifying all the things that pop up out of live rock as time goes by, and identifying algae is always interesting... unless you discover, as I did last night, that you've been plagued with Bryopsis.
I read hundreds of posts about this stuff and all I got was confused. Sea hares, rabbitfish, tangs, turbo snails, manual removal, nutrient starvation... everyone uses a different method (or combination), and nobody seems to have 100% luck eradicating the devil weed.
I spent the day (yes, the ENTIRE day) cleaning my tank. I set up the diatom filter and began scrubbing the rockwork with a (new) toothbrush. Then I started blowing detritus out of the rocks with a powerhead and a turkey baster. I stirred up the sand a bit, and generally made a huge mess.
I have changed the diatom filter powder and rinsed out the filter five times so far. It has been running for about 8 hours now, pulling all manner of nasty dust from the water column; the gunk settles, I stir it up again, and filter it out. I can't really believe how much stuff is coming out -- the rock was all rinsed clean before going in the tank, so this detritus is all new! I'm hoping today's cleaning will help to starve the algae of nutrients.
We're going to the LFS this weekend and I'll ask their advice, hopefully there will be someone who has personal experience with Bryopsis working (and hopefully there won't just be some guy who tries to sell me a horseshoe crab and a clown tang).
Now I'm off to read more about algae, woohoo.
I read hundreds of posts about this stuff and all I got was confused. Sea hares, rabbitfish, tangs, turbo snails, manual removal, nutrient starvation... everyone uses a different method (or combination), and nobody seems to have 100% luck eradicating the devil weed.
I spent the day (yes, the ENTIRE day) cleaning my tank. I set up the diatom filter and began scrubbing the rockwork with a (new) toothbrush. Then I started blowing detritus out of the rocks with a powerhead and a turkey baster. I stirred up the sand a bit, and generally made a huge mess.
I have changed the diatom filter powder and rinsed out the filter five times so far. It has been running for about 8 hours now, pulling all manner of nasty dust from the water column; the gunk settles, I stir it up again, and filter it out. I can't really believe how much stuff is coming out -- the rock was all rinsed clean before going in the tank, so this detritus is all new! I'm hoping today's cleaning will help to starve the algae of nutrients.
We're going to the LFS this weekend and I'll ask their advice, hopefully there will be someone who has personal experience with Bryopsis working (and hopefully there won't just be some guy who tries to sell me a horseshoe crab and a clown tang).
Now I'm off to read more about algae, woohoo.
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