Bryopsis Cure:Higher Magnesium or Aquarium Grade Fluconazole?

alexytman · Apr 8, 2019

I have a small nano tank of around 30gallons and invested a lot of moneys in coral and livestock (designer clown). I am currently battling with a bryopsis issue and realise I have to deal with it as it is suffocating my corals (mainly zoas).

I came with the conclusion that only elevated magnesium and or Fluconazole has any real effect but am really scared to raise Mg as I am accustomed to the saying of stability first and am very scared of increasing it. Which would be the safest method of removing bryopsis with little to no chance of crashing the tank? I really don't want to crash another tank since my anemone incident during my holiday.

nautical_nathaniel · Apr 8, 2019

I wouldn't play around with a major parameter such as magnesium after so many (including myself) have had great success with Flucanazole with very little, if any, side effects.

I only had a elevated nutrients for a while after I killed all of my bryopsis off with Flucanazole, which only required some changes to feeding and how I dealt with nutrient export in my tank.

alexytman · Apr 8, 2019

nautical_nathaniel said:
I wouldn't play around with a major parameter such as magnesium after so many (including myself) have had great success with Flucanazole with very little, if any, side effects.

I only had a elevated nutrients for a while after I killed all of my bryopsis off with Flucanazole, which only required some changes to feeding and how I dealt with nutrient export in my tank.

What were the side effect, even if minuscule please tell me! As regarding to the nitrate rise i think my refugium will hopefully help. (current NO3 is 2.5)

IslandLifeReef · Apr 8, 2019

I used flucanazole and only noticed a rise in nutrients. There is a thread about battling bryopsis with fluc which I followed exactly. Bryopsis was gone in two weeks.

nautical_nathaniel · Apr 8, 2019

alexytman said:
What were the side effect, even if minuscule please tell me! As regarding to the nitrate rise i think my refugium will hopefully help. (current NO3 is 2.5)

"I only had a elevated nutrients for a while after I killed all of my bryopsis off with Flucanazole, which only required some changes to feeding and how I dealt with nutrient export in my tank." - My previous post

TexasReefer82 · Apr 8, 2019

Just do the fluconazole - it's so easy! and so effective! It truly eliminates the species from the tank entirely - until you reintroduce it. I've done it a handful of times since bryopsis is so easy to reintroduce with any new addition to the tank, even a frag plug or LPS coral that looks clean can have it. The side effects I noticed were: slightly elevated Phosphate (from the dying bryopsis) as well as noticeably improved coral health (likely from the elevated phosphate). Bryopsis is really good as sucking even trace amounts of phosphate from the water column and that's bad for corals - especially SPS. I'm one of those that has to dose nutrients so that my SPS don't starve and STN, so eliminating the bryopsis phosphate sponge makes for happier acropora.

The elevated magnesium method isn't what it seems. It was only ever one particular brand of magnesium that worked and it worked because of either an impurity or an additive in that brand only. Elevated magnesium by itself doesn't work. I've heard speculation that perhaps a lithium impurity may be the true active ingredient.

TexasReefer82 · Apr 8, 2019

Forgot to add, once the bryopsis was dead after two weeks, all I did was turn the skimmer back on. I didn't do any water changes at all. There's no real need IMO. The skimmer will slowly remove the fluconazole, the residual fluconazole will continue to inhibit the growth of hair algae, and the extra phosphate will be consumed by the corals.

andrewkw · Apr 8, 2019

Flucanazole is safer and has a better track record. The only reason I would be concerned with dosing is if I was running a system that absolutely could not handle the protein skimmer being offline. This is really only the highest of high bioloads. Given that it's a 30 gallon zoa dominated tank you might not even have a skimmer. In your case I would not be concerned at all.