Fluconazole: when do I know it's 'done,' and how to add chaeto back in?

[CampAquarium]

Hi! We have been battling bryopsis and are treating our tank with FluxRX/fluconazole. We are on about day 12 of treatment, and have seen most of the bryopsis disappear, hooray! However, I realized I read all about how to introduce fluconazole, but not what to do at the end of treatment.

1) How do I know when the fluconazole is "finished," per se? Does the bryopsis/GHA need to disappear 100%? Or does like... the fluconazole 'get into its system' and continue to kill it off over time?

2) What do I need to do at the end of the treatment period? Does the fluconazole sort of disintegrate over time? Or do I need to do things to actively filter it out? Like add carbon back in, turn our UV back on, etc. If I have to do any of those things to actively filter it out, what should I do, and how long does that take?

3) When is it safe to put our chaeto back into the refugium? We removed it when we first treated the tank, and have been keeping it in a bucket with a light and bubbler, but it's not doing super well in there. I'd love to add it back as soon as we can, but don't want to inadvertently kill it by putting it back in while the FluxRX is still potent.

Thanks as always for your help.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Bumping your post!

 

[leviticus]

I wait until all the algae is all white before I start doing water changes, adding UV, or Carbon filtration.

 

[leviticus]

For the Chaeto, I would only add a small portion back after your treatment and water change. If the small ball you add back does well then you add the rest.

 

[CampAquarium]

For the Chaeto, I would only add a small portion back after your treatment and water change. If the small ball you add back does well then you add the rest.

Thank you!

To follow up here, and for anyone else who has this question, we waited until the algae was like 98% gone. Our LFS said that in their experience, the algae will keep dying off once it has been affected/saturated with the fluconazole. So far that has been true, and it keeps dying back, but will update if it goes the other way.

What we did was:
- 2 water changes
- turned UV skimming back on for at least a day
- added carbon back in for at least a day
(Our skimmer was already on, as our FluxRX instructions said to turn it on after 3 days)

Then we put the chaeto back in. So far it's fine, will post again if it takes a turn for the worse.