From time to time, we will be featuring newsworthy threads on AquaNerd from our friends over at Reef2Reef. This particular thread discussing the removal of bryopsis from your aquarium caught my attention.
If you have never encountered bryopsis an you’ve never heard about it, you are lucky and consider ignorance bliss! Bryopsis has long been a nuisance algae that we all loath as reef aquarists. Eradicating this algae is very difficult because it anchors itself within many different objects such as rock work, wave makers, in tank plumbing, etc. Very coarse in nature, this plant attracts detritus within it’s feathery branches. It is difficult (if not nearly impossible) to permanently remove by mechanical means but it seems that someone in the reefing community has come up with a safe way to kill this pesky algae. As always, we advise our readers to do their homework as we have not tried this method ourselves.
Some of the previous treatments involved removing rocks and corals and carefully brushing hydrogen peroxide on the bryposis. This work is both tedious and time consuming with the end result usually being the recurrence of the bryopsis. Another treatment method is to “overdose” liquid magnesium with Kent Tech M to a level of 1600 ppm or greater. Over time, the bryopsis weakens and dies off.
According to this new tread on Reef2Reef, this new method of eradicating Bryopsis can be accomplished in 10 days. To learn more on this new treatment method, check out the bryopsis in the aquarium thread.
