cyano

For anyone who has ever battled Satan's algae (bryopsis) currently or in the past know that it can be a very daunting task and will test your mettle to the point that giving up even crosses our minds. Bryopsis is not your typical algae, it does not require high nitrates or phosphates to thrive. Bryopsis will strike a clean spotless tank just the same as a dirty tank so despite what you may have been told if all you have is bryopsis in your tank then you do not have phosphates leaking from your live rock, your phosphates and nitrates are not undetectable because the algae is sucking it up, bryopsis doesn't care about light so don't try to starve it from light, and it is not your fault. Bryopsis is not hair algae so you can't teat it like it, bryopsis is the spawn of satan if it gets out of hand and if you pull it out manually and the smallest piece floats to a new location it WILL grow into a new infestation while the location you pulled it from will most likely grow more back.

I fought this scourge of the aquatic world for 8 months before i discovered that I was not fighting hair algae as I previously thought. I decided to use the Kent Tech M method (I needed just under a gallon for total dosage) and a week and a half later here we are. I learned and made a few observations along the way which I would like to share.

My first magnesium test showed at 1140 which is below the tank recommendations of around 1350. Raising my magnesium between 50 and 100 per day. I observed that higher the magnesium was raised caused the bryopsis to slow the growth to a stop in a matter of just a couple days and once it was around recommended levels it no longer advanced. I also noticed that at slightly higher levels it seemed to detoxify the bryopsis to the point that my clean up crew would actually eat it but of course that was hit or miss as they would not specifically target it. Once my magnesium was about 1400 I began directly squirting the bryopsis with the Kent Tech M to try to shock it and help it along its way. Once my magnesium levels reached 1600 my snails were taking a hit, they seemed weaker and were unable to hang on to things while "sleeping" and I would have to flip them back over constantly so I decided at this point that it was not worth taking my magnesium any higher and risk killing off what was eating the weakened bryopsis.

After 5 days of dosing there was very little of the bryopsis remaining and to prevent me from dosing any more Tech M I decided to opt for targeting the small amount that was left with a hydrogen peroxide dip which also gave me the chance to thin out my bristle worm population and rework some of my rockscape. I also wanted to do what I could to hopefully prevent this from ever coming back so peroxide dip seemed worth doing. The following are progression pictures, I will edit or answer questions about this as needed