Am I cursed? Bryopsis (Sea Fern) HELP!!!

[kallan]

I mixed in some 30 or so pounds of old live rock that had aiptasia, red algae turf, and hair algae (that didn't make its presence known until weeks later) with the nice BRS pukani dry rock. I thought I had gotten rid of the pests and algae except for the red turf algae. I spotted this fine bluish green fern and began manually removing it with tweezers. I was thinking it was a kind of caulerpa. Now I have been pulling this stuff for literally hours a day and it has fragged itself like wildfire. I've read you can raise pH, but with fish and corals I'm afraid to do that for an extended period of time. Also, using Kent's Magnesium M, but I don't have a test kit for magnesium, so I'm afraid of this killing my 3 cleaner shrimp, pistol shrimp, etc. I bought a Scribbled Rabbitfish....won't touch this stuff. My Bicolor Blenny, Scopas Tang won't either. I thought it was a phosphate problem, so I got a NextReef reactor and started running Rowaphos. This evil weed never slowed down. This hobby is going to drive me to drink! Any suggestions before I lose my mind?

135 gal, pH 8.15, CA 590, ALK 10.6

[GPB]

Don't dose any more Mg until you get a test kit. I think you would have to raise it REALLY high to kill shrimp and fish so they are probably OK for now.

If you can get the rocks out, try painting the Bryopsis with a 50 -50 solution RO DI water and Hydrogen peroxide. It basically kills the stuff on contact. I just painted the algae with a small paint brush so I didn't have to soak the entire rock and risk killing any critters. 2 days later no more algae wherever I had panted it.

[captrad]

you can look into a Lettuce Nudibranch (lettuce sea slug) thats all they will eat just make sure you have a place ready for it to go when its gone or they will starve.

[f3honda4me]

I've had good luck with florida ceriths eating it, unless it gets too big.

[gweston]

I recently got a lettuce nudi. Not too expensive, and they eat bryopsis. The thing is.. that is pretty much all they eat. So if you run out of it, they'll slowly starve. They are partially photosynthetic critters, but they need a food source to maintain health.

My family loves the new nudi.. but it sometimes has trouble handing high flow areas, overflows (can get caught up in overflow teeth), and they are at risk near power heads and such.

My tank has been quite clean the past 6 months. I had some bryopsis issues about a year ago. Fixed with better care, filtration, carbon, and phosphate remover reactors. Now I am feeding the tank a tad extra to try to grow a little bit of bryopsis to support it. Go figure.

[cody6766]

I used TechM to fix a few bryopsis issues with no harm to fish or pistol shrimp. h2o2 works well if you can get the rocks out. I used it for several types of algae with success.

[kallan]

Thanks to everyone for all the good info. I've taken out about 30 pounds of rock out so far and did the peroxide treatment. Over the last 6 months, I've been adding a lot of copepods, tiggerpods, amphipods to my tank for my mandarin and I lost a lot of their population with the peroxide. I was surprised to see so many flee the rocks. I hated that. I've ordered the Tech M and a Salifert Magnesium test kit since some of the rocks are so heavy and have corals attached.

I did stop using my NextReef Reactor with Rowaphos this past week because my pink xenias were melting away and within 3 days, they've come back. What do you think of mixing Renew, Denitrate and carbon in this one chamber reactor instead of the Rowaphos? I must have been using too much Rowaphos (500 mg). I was thinking of adding just a small amount of each of these three medias and then renew them in a month or two. Also, can this Rowaphos be saved? I've run it for about 1 1/2 months. I'm afraid it may leach phosphates back into the water if I start it back up. It's still in the reactor.

I'v been keeping up with water changes and it doesn't seem to phase this bryopsis plumera....seems to grow even faster. Even with this battle, I still love my tank!

[t4zalews]

Tech M, had it everywhere, wilted away in a week. Havent had any return since

[Bandsaw]

My One Spot Fox face (I think that is what he is called) does a wonderful job on all my problem algae. As long as the bubble, hair or another type of reddish turf algae does not get too long or big, he eats it up like no tomorrow. Between him and my bristle tooth tang, I have no algae problems.

I still get hair algae growing in my overflow, but it is full of life, so just let that stuff be and let it work as a turf scrubber. None grows in refugium - not sure why. Maybe the hair algae just can't complete with the cheato.

[geezers11]

Originally Posted by GPB

Don't dose any more Mg until you get a test kit. I think you would have to raise it REALLY high to kill shrimp and fish so they are probably OK for now.

If you can get the rocks out, try painting the Bryopsis with a 50 -50 solution RO DI water and Hydrogen peroxide. It basically kills the stuff on contact. I just painted the algae with a small paint brush so I didn't have to soak the entire rock and risk killing any critters. 2 days later no more algae wherever I had panted it.

How long do you keep the rocks out of the tank after painting the HP...or do you place them immediately back in?

[Donnytruck]

Trust me, I think I might of had the worst bryopsis outbreak ever, I used a phosban 150 reactor with brs bio pellets, they were in about a month, then all the algea went away. It was simple!

[brandon429]

Both methods of peroxide dosing and nutrient stripping can beat that growth

if you use peroxide then any contact time will work. 30 seconds, I use 3 mins any contact kills the target