Reeflander

Nitrate : 5ppm
Phosphate : 0.05 mg/l

Thanks for sharing your results with us. ;)

Hopefully AF kills your specie of algae.

Your getting there. ;)

YOur goal IMHO, is to have undectable readings for phosphate and nitate using hobby grade test equipment.

Would AF be worth a try for bryopsis? I've been battling it for about a year now. I have a ULNS so it doesn't look like green acres or anything; it's just no matter how hard I try there are always babies coming. I've kept select frags in complete darkness for 2+ months and it still re-grows. Raising Mg from 1350 to 1800 for weeks doesn't touch it (tech M.) What I've had the best success with is just superglueing over any and all that I find. Would a UV sterilizer help? I'm just looking for something to slow it down enough to make progress with the superglue instead of an algal quagmire.

I guess my bigger question is, can it ever truly be eradicated?- or just kept at bay?~



~Logan

Bryopsis is very tough to eradicate from a reef aquarium full of rock and coral. Unfortunately, AF does not seem to work well on bryopsis with the posts we have had in this thread. Increasing mag levels seems to work best with the Tech M product from the reports I have seen, though some hobbyists achieved control using other mag supplements.

The only other thing that may work that I have read in one thread, is where the hobbyist achieved control of bryopsis raising his salinity level up to 1.030, which the hobbyist reported worked on his particular specie of bryopsis. This was reported by one hobbyist only. I have read where the scientists have found that some species of byropsis don't do as well at higher salinity levels. This may be worth a try. If you decide to try this, I would appreciate hearing about your results. ;)

Reeflander

Test Results :

Nitrates : 8ppm (due to change in progress from vodka to vinegar). Vinegar dose :18ml daily.

Phosphates: <0.01 (almost undetectable)
Should i still replace rowaphos or wait till next week.

Should i still scrub rocks to clean but my new plants like red thread and micro tube worms will die:(. What do u suggest bro?

Hey reeflander, i want add some hardy corals who dont need much light? Can u suggest some? How abt. Mushroom Leather Coral.

I would prefer to see an undetectable reading for nitrate and phosphate when fighting an algae problem before you stop the GFO.

Scrubbing and removing the algae is the most important thing you can do when fighting an algae problem. The other life should make it even with scrubbing.

Many of your soft corals can get by with less light.

Good, i will start with some Brown Mushroom Leather Corals.

I finally broke down and joined this thread by trying AF. I've posted a few threads on RC regarding an ongoing brown hair algae problem. I've tried everything I can to get rid of the stuff.

So today was the 4th dose and so far so good as far as the algae goes. The brown stuff is 80% gone and that nasty film that I had to clean off the glass every other day is only every 4 or 5 days now (and that might actually be due to VSV dosing)

Seemingly negative impacts are:

* A mild to moderate case of Cyano on the sand bed
* Polyp extension on almost all of my SPS is crud...


I've read through this post and see that cyano is common with the breakdown of algae, plus the VSV can feed it as well? I vacuumed the sand bed 3 days ago and run filter socks 24/7. I'm still running GFO & GAC. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to quit dosing the VSV until I get the cyano under control??

Also, have there been any other reports of SPS being negatively affected or poor polyp extension?

Thanks so much and will definitely post my progress.

Temp: 78
pH: 8.3
PO4: 0 (Salifert)
NO3: 0 (API)
Ca: 420
dKh: 8.5
sg: 1.025

Thanks again!

There have been few reports of negative impact on coral. Overdosing VSV can have negative inpact on coral, especially the sugar part. It does not take much sugar to cause problems. Personally, I would remove the sugar from the mix you dose. Many hobbyists have reported less cyano problems when dosing vinegar only, including myself and Randy. ;)

Are you saying to change my mix to vodka and vinegar, or only vinegar? And in either case, how would I determine the new dosage amount?

I've been dosing 1.1mL of VSV on a 90-95g system

Thanks!

Personally I like the vinear better when you have cyano problems. To use vinegar you will need to figure 8X as much vinegar for the vodka part you are using. I would not bother to figure the sugar into the equation.

I use the glassbox recipe...200ml Vodka, 50ml Vinegar, 1.5tbps sugar.

So you're saying 200ml x8 = 1600ml + the original 50ml = 1650ml total?

And then my current dosage of 1.1ml daily would equate to how much of the new mix?

With your current mix, you are using 0.275 ml of vinegar and 0.825 ml of vodka per day approx. Therefor you will want to use 6.875 ml of vinegar per day to be equivalent to your current 1.1 ml daily dose, not counting the sugar part. So I would use about 7 ml of vinegar daily & work from there. ;)

FWIW, I have used 45 ml of vinegar in the 100 gallon total water equivalent per day without problems. Randy has dosed at least twice the amount I have without problems. Each tank is different and the nitrate production in your tank can make a big difference (total amount of fish & fish food added). ;)

Should u stop running GFO and carbon while dosing AFM? If so what about the once weekly maintenance dose? Stop GFO and carbon for one day a week?

Thanks for any info.

From the results we have seen from hobbyists using AF in this thread, it is not necessary to stop GFO and GAC. The benefits of running both GAC and GFO while using AF to fight algae are very good IMHO.

will run everything as normal then.
Thanks.

It always seemed like I use a small maintenance dose of VSV...do you happened to know of a "common" daily dosage for a 100g system on VSV??

I'll switch to the vinegar tomorrow. I have considered the NP pellets, but I don't wanna be another beta tester on something else.

My chalices all seem to have halted growth and look unhealthy. Could this too be attributed to the sugar? My dKh creeped up to 9 recently and I'm letting it fall closer to 7.5-8 as with NSW conditions...

You dose carbon sources like vodka & vinegar to maintain your nitrate level. Whatever minimal amount works for you. Each tank is different. The only reason I was using more vinegar is that I was using vinegar to increase alk and calcium production in my saturated kalk water with the carbon source as a side benefit.

I'm not sure what is causing your problems with your coral, it could be many things or their combinations. Check water parameters first and make sure your phosphate is below 0.03 ppm.

Your welcome. ;)

I have come to realize that I'm dealing with bryopsis instead of regular old hair algae. When I first noticed the growth, it was still very small and it resembled regular HA. Now that it's had a chance to grow a lot it's actually individual fronds and feathery in appearance.

Anyway, since I've used AFX in the past and am still using it, I decided to do an experiment and increase the dosage. I usually don't do this at all even outside of the aquarium hobby but since I've never really noticed a negative effect on my inhabitants, I figured I'd give it a shot and if there were signs of stress, I'd stop. So this past week, I've kept up with my standard dosage amount, but increased the time frame from every 3 days to every other day. It appears that a lot of the bryopsis has turned either a sickly yellow-ish green, white or is browning out. There definitely is no "green" bryopsis in the tank.

Part of my reasoning behind this was I read somewhere (it may have even been here) that the active ingredient in AFX dissipates after around 24 hrs. Increasing the dosage allows the algaecide to be more active and maybe that's what's needed to combat this algae with this product.

Now - my tank is new and it's going through it's stages as well. I expect to see lots of weird blooms come around but so far there's no negative impact on any inhabitants - although - again, I don't have a lot. Just a few small Euphyllia frags, and a couple of small open brains.

In addition to running AFX, I've added a bag of Seachem's Seagel to the sump and am running my socks to catch any particulate. My skimmer is set about right in the middle - not too wet, not to dry.

I'll keep you all informed as time progresses.

sneeyatch,

Thanks for sharing your experiment. ;)

You have treaded into possibly dangerous territory with your experiment. That said, experimentation is how we learn to use the tools we have available to us more efficiently. The kind of experiment you are running is usually done with inhabitants you can afford to loose. Personally I would not hesitate to use AF at higher than recommended doses if I did not have fish, coral or other occupants in my tank, like when first starting out. The AF does brake down quickly, within 24 hrs.

In my field of study, Universities experiment with herbicides to try and control stubborn weed pests, like poison ivy for example. They found that much higher doses of Round-up worked well to control it. As a result the manufacturer put more money out to get the new label for Round-up at twice the strength to control poison ivy. Comparing land herbicides to reef herbicides is completely different, since you can't apply the product directly on the target without getting it on the non-target organisms. ;)

With what I have read about AF, you don't want to increase the strength of it. Increasing the strength of AF has caused problems for some hobbyists in this thread. Increasing the frequency as you have done, may be helpful, but only time will tell. ;)

Remember, any hobbyists who decides to experiment with AF are taking a chance of loosing valuable inhabitants. :)

If you are willing to take this chance, I am interested in following along and knowing exactly what doses, frequencies, tank inhabbitants, pests.....ect, you have in your tank.

Pictures would be nice as well. :)

I was going to take some pics the other day, but since I didn't really notice anything different, I didn't. I will pick out a couple of spots and start taking progress pics now that I believe I'm getting the upper hand.

I did realize that I would be taking a huge chance but since my tank is still very, very young and my inhabitants are few, I would take the chance. My only inhabitants as of now are a single red leg hermit that I acquired by chance, a pair of true perc clowns, a tomini tang that was just introduced about 36 hrs ago, small frags of frogspawn, hammer and torch corals and 2 small open brain corals. I can very easily remove the livestock and place them into my QT (which is up and running) if necessary.

My tank is a 150 DD cube with a small sump. I'm not sure on the gallons but I guess it's holding somewhere around 20 gallons. The rock in the display is only around 75 - 80lbs and I have approx. 2" sand bed. I went ahead and assumed on the safe side that I would dose for a total of 150 gallons. I should be in the green on that by a decent margin.

My dosage as of this time is 15ml every other day and I dosed this morning before I left for work.