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Cure for Bryopsis

art13

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
To start off, this method is new, there is only a handful of people i know right now that have tried it, so any long term side effects are not known right now. I can say i have noticed none of my tank inhabitants being irritated by this, corals, fish, inverts. The earliest i know of someone using this is last november, and still no side effects on his tank, bryopsis has not returned. Again, no long term testing, so use your judgement, research the med first.

First, the med is specifically made for fungal infections, it's called Fluconazole. the most common is a yeast infection, but also used as a cure for a type of fungus in fish. You can only get this med from a script, unless you specifically search for the fish medication which i did, i managed to get it for $1 a pill, 200mg a piece. From what i understand, it blocks a process in fungus that creates cholesterol, effectively killing the fungus, whatever it blocks, bryopsis also shares this specific process, so it effects it as well. Coral do not share this trait.

So what i did was this. The dosage for fluconazole is 150mg per 30 liters. mine came out to dose around 2900mg, so i just made it an even 3000mg. get a cup of RO water, open each capsule and put powder in, discard the capsules, do not add them to the water. Mix it up, then turn off your skimmer, any gfo or carbon, and your lights. The skimmer can be left on without a cup. Dump the medication into a high flow area slowly. After the first day you can turn your lights back on, if you have any UV i would leave them off. Theres a debate on if it will break down the meds. After 3-5 days you will notice the die off start. After a week it will be mostly gone, the treatment is for a 12-15 day period, at the end there should be no bryopsis left. Turn everything back on at this point and you are good to go.

A few notes since this is new, some stuff may not be necessary.

I turned my skimmer back on as well as my actinics on day 4 with no issue, meds still worked.

I put gfo back onto the system at day 7, still no effect on medication, still working.
 

art13

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Nice written up Art, did you noticed any effects on any other type of algae?


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I couldn't say for sure, as i don't have any macro's. I didn't have hair algae at the time of dosing, but i do have some now with the die off, so i imagine it will not work for that, or cyano as well as you can tell from the pics.
 

art13

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
I can only say that the outcome is downright unbelievable. Great documentation Art.....I've got to believe you're smiling from ear to ear.

That would be an understatement. Think of it like the feeling you would get if you keep trying but still keep falling behind on your mortgage payments, and then someone comes along and just pays it off for you.
 
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