My battle with Bryopsis

So a few months ago one tiny feathery strand of some unidentified algae showed up in my tank. I thought nothing of it, and plucked it away. Odd that my snails wouldn't have eaten it, but oh well.

Then the strand came back. And it brought friends. More showed up and eventually entire rocks were covered. Tried manually removing with pulling and brushing the rocks, it would work only long enough until it grew back. Every subsequent pulling just resulted in it spreading worse, causing greater headaches for me. It's choking out my corals which is indirectly causing me to lose money. I'm not a fan of that.

I researched, found that I do indeed have bryopsis. Most forums advise to use Kent Tech M to raise the magnesium levels high enough to kill it off in a week or two.

Venturing out to the local shops, nobody seemed to have in on hand. Seascapes used their stock to battle their own bryopsis war, every other place I called didn't have it either.

Good ol' Foster and Smith got it to me less than 48 hours after ordering I guess it helps that it shipped from MN.

Today is the day. This is the first day of the war. Chemical weapons will be used.

Join me in this adventure

--- Auto-Merged, Oct 13, 2015 ---

Day one baseline tank photo

 

Good luck, other things you can try is H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) on the byropsis and then your algae eaters will eat it (if you have any) and lettuce slugs (if you don't have that much flow). Both worked for me in my struggles.

 

I have a pretty solid algae crew, but they do NOT like eating bryopsis. Manually removing is super easy and it comes off in very large chunks....only to grow back. I want this stuff eradicated.

 

Take what you can out, clean it with Hydrogen peroxide and put it back. Hand pull what is left in the tank. Buy Fauna Marine Algae X now known as and sold at DINO X (Algae X) - Fauna Marin - Bulk Reef Supply. This worked for me. I fought bryopsis for some time. Used Kent M it did not work for me. Used Algae X now known as (Dino X) It does the trick when used following directions. Good Luck!

 

Got rid of mine with hydrogen peroxide. I do have a jug of unopened Kent marine if you run out. Bought it for the same reason but never had to use it.

 

Great advice guys! Thank you for the input. I'm going to give the Kent Tech M a go to see what can be done with it. I happened to be home for lunch the moment the big brown truck showed up, so I was able to dose the tank right then.

 

Here's the 24-hour update photo from yesterday. No discernable changes. My wife stated that it looks like it is melting this morning, so I'll take another photo this eve.

 

It's definitely the fern/fan variety.

 

I'm winning. Slow and steady dosing of Tech M has caused the algae to turn brown and melt. Manually removing it daily as it's clogging my overflows and pumps.

 

I am glad it is working for you! Bryopsis is a nightmare!