Bryopsis...who's beaten it and HOW?

[Jase]

Subject says it all.

 

[tomocean]

I had a couple of patches of it...yanked it out by hand and it never came back. Seems like once I disturbed the colony the rest of it just died off. Maybe I was just lucky?

 

[fnj]

I got a break out of Bryopsis after I moved my tank about a month ago. I only had it on the glass so I scraped it off and siphoned as much as possible out. It hasn't grown back in 2 weeks so I'm not sure if it is gone or not.

 

[JD]

I beat it by the addition of a DSB and RO/DI..... Before I switched I was going nuts trying to keep that crap out of my tank along with a forest of hair algae... Now I have zero of either but nice growths of macro... Silica and phosphates were the culprets,, HTH

 

[Anonymous]

Had one patch in some green star polyp. Covered it with a big scallop shell.

 

[Stark]

I had a number of patches throughout my reef. I did a large water change, took out each rock that was noticeably affected and scrubbed it with a toothbrush while holding it in a bucket of old water. Holding it under water allowed me to see the bryopsis much better, it didn’t matt to the rock. When the water started getting too green to be an effective rinse, I dumped it and filled another from the tank.
After I had thoroughly cleaned all the infested rock, I took the heater, skimmer, and powerheads to the sink and cleaned them as well. I even had clumps growing on the surface of the sandbed. I removed every bit of the stuff I could see.
I completed the water change, put the rocks and hardware back in, and I haven’t seen any since. That was nearly a year ago.

 

[cubera]

Not my favorite subject....but we beat it by ripping it out of the tank, raising dKH to consistently over 12, increasing skimming, and ripping more of it out of the tank. We tried Nudis and a variety of surgeon fishes to no avail. It finally disappeared about as fast as it appeared (fast)....it all started after changing back to Iwasakis after burning Radiums. Keep after it and it will go away.

 

[THillson]

I fought that stuff ( I have other names for it but they are not appropriate here) when I set up my tank three years ago. Tried everything, was removing more than 2 cups a week. I got it on some old Florida rock I bought from another reefer. Not until I added macro's to my sump/refugium and lit it 24/7 was I able to get the upper hand. The only fish I could get to east it were striped rabbit fish. I feel your pain.

 

[Greg Hiller]

There is no good simple solution. All the above methods do help. FWIW, I have had some success with control using the sea slugs. They do help a bit. I recently purchased some from eTropicals.com, and these were about twice the size (even though they looked identical otherwise) of ones I'd purchased from another MO shop. They lay eggs too, but usually the babies don't make it. One idea I've toyed with is getting a small 10 gallon tank and letting Bryopsis run wild in it. Then put one of the sea slug egg strands in, and when the babies have grown up a bit then add them to the main tank.

 

[Jase]

Well, I'm going to try Dan's method. I pulled as much out as possible, and covered each area with a clam shell.
I'll leave them for a fortnight and report back!
Something has to eat in the ocean??

 

[SteveP]

I had a small patch. I ripped out what I could without moving the rock, and a turbo snail finally took care of the rest.

Steve
8{I

 

[ZeroMaintenance]

Does anyone know where I can get a good pic of this stuff? The one in the FAQ is not very good. I have something in my sump that fits the description but doesn't look quite like the pic. I need a good close-up to ID it. I don't have a pic of mine to post either.

 

[Henry1]

I have them during the first 2 months of startup after introducing LR on the 2nd week.
Just let them grow to its heart content, kind off starving off the nutrient supply, then yank them all out at one go when they are big and bushy.
Subsequent grow back seem to deminish over time. Now they are all gone!
Used RO water and control/limit feeding to keep nutrient level as low as possible while they are growing strong.

 

[SurfsUP]

I've been fighting the d@mn things for over a year and lately it's been growing faster and spreading.

At about 1 month after my setup a small patch grew and I just pulled it out and it stop growing. Small patches would pop up every so often and I just pull it out and it would stop growing in that area. But for the last 6 months a patch grew in my small 6" orange/green button polyps and it started to grew faster and everytime I pull it out, it would grow back again. Now it has covered the rock and killed all the polyps and even spread to the larger 2' rock next to it. I trashed the small rock but the larger I can't and I'm still fighting the d@mn thing every week. Anyone know of any tangs that will eat these suckers?

ZeroMaintenance-Here are some pic's of the d@mn things and a pic of my beautiful button polyp rock before it was overtaken.