Byropsis.... GGEERRRRR
 

I have been battling Byropsis on a few of my favorite pieces of rock for about a year now. Kent M works for a bit, but never destroy's it all, and it always comes back.

Since I'm just keeping the rocks live for my new build, I'm wondering what's the best way to get rid of it completely? I've heard putting it in the freezer could work. But I want to make sure. I'm worried that I'll do something, think it's gone and then have an outbreak in my new tank.

I would hate to cook the rock because it is so beautiful and full of coraline. Any suggestions?

A Peroxide dip would work quite well.

With rock submerged and in a bucket ( I have done it with old water from a water change on the tank) pour the peroxide in very slow a little bit at a time until you see air bubbles start to form on the algae.

Let is sit for five min. Remove the rock (swish around and pull off the lose tufts of algae as best as you can) and swish in another bucket of old tank water (might as well use it for something before it goes down the drain) and then put the rock back in the tank or your rock storage bin wherever it came from.

Works very well!

I'm having the same problem so I got long spine urchins, started vodka In the hopes of achieving ULNS an once I have accomplished that I'll be using tech M to polish off the rest hope it works cuz dam is bryopsis crappy GL with your battle I'll be following along in the hopes of someone having an idea I missed :)

Take boiling water and a syringe and shoot it at the stands of bryopsis (yep, right in the tank). You'd be amazed how well this works. If it's truly bryopsis nothing will eat it and it would take a miracle of low nutrients to starve it out in your lifetime (well, maybe not that extreme, but it will feel like it).

Just be careful not to miss and hit your corals or other livestock. Maybe take a finger and chase out all the copepods and whatnot that live inside it. Otherwise you'll see a whole cloud of cooked copepods drift out after you blast it with the boiling water. Do a small patch at a time and wait a day and do the next batch. It will take a day or two for it to dissolve away. If it's really stubborn you might need a couple applications.

That actually works?

I might try the peroxide dip. Has anyone else used this method?

I don't have anything but snails, crabs, and lots of pods in the tank currently. So i'm not worried about cooking anything with the boiling water. Its just tough to see the stands, it seems like they are anchored everywhere. I have one rock coated in the stuff in a 4" X 8" patch thats thick as crap. It really took off when I stopped dosing Kent M.

I was told at that for Kent m to be effective that u must actually spray the bryopsis with it not just dose

If I remove the light from the tank (theres nothing in there anyways) would it still live? Or would that just bring it back the second there is light on it again?

Dude, that friggin' worked! Tony, maybe you're not as crazy as I thought you were :razz:

You have to remember this crap has survived ICE ages, Fire and everything else so I can assure you lights out wont eradicate it. You'd have to go completely dark (not even room light) then you have to figure how to kill any spores it's let loss in your system. It will need some drastic measures for sure.

I tried peroxyde dip for bryopsis and it does go away but it return in a few weeks. I suspect it is deeper in the rock than the peroxyde can get?

Man, I'm thinking of killing these rocks completely with a bleach bath at this point!! I never want to have to deal with it again.

Kent Tech M and GFO from BRS worked for me. At one point I had a full square foot of bryopsis throughout my tank (if you were to add it all up) and now I don't have any.

I had it for about a year in my 180 gal.It began to grow after I started using the NP pellets.At that time I also stopped the uv cause that's what the instructions were.I spent at least 2 hours 2x/wk pulling it off.
Things I did to get rid of it:
1) I have a 12 gal tank running that I use for various things. In it are 3 crabs(a blue legged,a calcinus elegans and an emerald crab). After scrubbing the rocks that I could get out of the main tank(with Coral RX),I put them in the little tank one by one and they did a very good job of eating most of it.They would not eat it if I put them in the big tank. After awhile the bryopsis would start growing again after I had put them back in the 180.
2).I plugged my UV back in.
3) I got my phophates lowered using cyanostarver(foz down). The pellets didn't do anything,although I still have a small amount of them running.Also use GFO.
4)I switched to Kent magnesium.(1350)
5)I got a long spined urchin,3 tuxedos,and a bunch of snails.
6)But the very best were 6 lettuce nudibranch(slugs) that I got from the Reef Shoppe.It took Kelly awhile to get them in but they sure did the trick. Unfortunately they have all died cause there wasn't anything left for them to eat.
I still get abit on my powerheads and on the overflow,but nothing like it was.

did the Tech-M, knocked it back completely then started to see again after a few months (and now with cyano) as bad as before. Changed my MH bulbs, still manually working on small patches but seems grow has slowed to almost nothing.

A pincushion urchin (similar here) I picked up seems to avoid it

Vertex Biopellets then a course of Microbactor 7 all the algae in the aquarium melted within a few weeks and never came back.

So I have decided to either bleach or boil the rocks to start brand new. I have done both before, but the bleaching would do a heck of a lot better in the warmer summer months as far as evaporating the bleach in the sun. So boiling might be better.

I'm using all dry marco rock for the new display anyways, and I want these nice pieces in the main display. So this Byropsis crap has to be completely erradicated.

So here is the question: BOIL OR BLEACH???

Couldn't you just dry it out? Would that take to long?

Sure, you could totally kill your live rock and start fresh if you so wish, but if experience has taught me anything, another pest (or the same) will eventually end up on your rock. If you're not against adding another fish to your system, you could try a Scopas tang. I've found these fish to be extremely versatile algae eaters and have consistently eaten Bryopsis in the several different systems I have added them to. They have taken care of it every single time.

Yeah unfortunately I have tried scopas, yellow, blue, and kole tangs. None of which helped. I've also tried lettuce nudibranch's, Kent Tech M dosing, boiling water aimed at the stocks, and various snails, shrimps, urchins and crabs. I must have the most stubborn case ever.

If you just dry it out, it will come back for sure. The spores and roots will still be attached

So the byropsis on the 60 to 70 pounds of rock that has been dry for 2 month would come back if I put it into a tank? I was planning on maybe using it later on another tank in the future having the byropsis come up again would suck.

My giant mexican turbo snail were eating it but since they all died eventually and I did not buy more that algae is making a come back.

I tried peroxyde and it goes away but it return after a month or so as if it was rooted deep inside the rock.

The foxface was also eating it.