Help me rebuild my tanks...

Corax

Corax

Temporarily risen from the dead..
Nov 14, 2001
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Howdy folks, it's been a long time since I hit this forum, but I need a few opinions here...

Currently I have the following:

  • 29g
  • 3.5" Maroon Clown
  • 1" Yellow Tail Damsel
  • Coral Banded Shrimp
  • Chocolate Chip Starfish
  • bout 30lbs of Liverock
    Hardware:
  • Emperor 400, empty just for massive circulation
  • NO lighting
  • small powerhead for cross current

    55g
  • Pair (well, 2 separate individuals actually) Tomato Clowns
  • 3" Coral Beauty Angel
  • 1" Green Chromis (the lone survivor of that school.. Never again!)
  • 4" Foxface Lo
  • 3" Mandarin fish
  • Bubbletip Anemone
  • bout 80-100lbs of liverock
    Hardware:
  • 3 powerheads, lots of movement going on
  • Remora Protien Skimmer
  • AC200, mostly to hold my phosguard
  • Powerquad lighting, 2 -95w bulbs

Ok, here is my dilemma... My 55g is infested with bryopsis. I've fought this crap for a year and I'm finally over it. I've learned that bryopsis takes about a month of darkness to melt away, but I can't do that because of my anemone. So, here is what I plan to do:

  • 29g
  • Tomato Clowns
  • Yellow Tail Damsel
  • Bubbletip anemone
  • Mandarin
  • Coral Banded Shrimp
  • Chocolate Chip Starfish
    Hardware:
    I'll be moving one of my Powerquad bulbs into a new hood for the 29g. That puts 95w over 29g, which should be sufficient. I feed my anemone directly, so light isn't quite as important as it normally would be.

    55g
  • Maroon Clown
  • Coral Beauty Angel
  • Foxface Lo
  • Green Chromis - or not, see below...
    Hardware:
    The 55g will then have NO lighting, as the anemone will be in the other tank. I will then shut the lights off except for about 2 hours per day for feeding and viewing purposes. This should be sufficient to kill off the evil bryopsis.

My only concern is that the 29g is getting a bit cramped. I COULD leave the Mandarin and Chromis in the 55g, but I'd like to leave open the possibility of maybe removing the Foxface and adding an Antenatta/Radiatta Lion once I get this algae under control... I'm open to ideas, including find new homes for some fish if I have to...
 
Hi,

I understand from your posting that you are not a novice, so I do not know if this observation is too simplistic for you, but why do you want to attack the algae problem by starving the algae of light?

Instead, you could attempt to find the cause of the problem. Perhaps you are underskimming, you have a problem with your tapwater, you feed too much food for your fish, etc. Probably you have already tried to address the problem this way, but I am just wondering...

BTW Mandarin fish are beautiful. How long have you had yours?
 
The Remora is one of the best skimmers on the market, it is rated for a 75 gallon and it only needs emptying about every 3 weeks. Proteins aren't the problem... Alk is stable and has been for months, Calc is where it should be, phosphates are always nil. I use RO water, religiously. The one element the algae has plenty of is light. I can take one of my rocks, fill a 10gallon tank up with the tank water, give it no light and in 32 days, yes I've kept track, all signs of the bryopsis are gone. Put it back in the tank, it comes right back.

Time for drastic measures =)

The mandarin is indeed beautiful, mine has been thriving for about 2 years now.
 
I am not sure if I had this same kind of problem... I cant remember what species was of algae that I had growing when I had my tank with the clowns and an angelfish only.... I think it was this same algae....

I think I cleaned the tank, change the lights (light quality b/c of old age is often another problem), cleaned some of the rockwork, added a yellow tang... algae gone.

Have you thought about this also? have you tried to add a tang?

One of this days I have to try my hand at this mandarins... what do you feed yours? what temp do you keep it at? My LFS said that they needed relatively temperate waters....
 
Bryopsis is a very strange algae. It is impossible to remove mechanically, as it can completely reproduce itself from a single cell. It is also poisonous to most fish with the Foxface Lo being the exception.

I had a Yellow Tang for a while, but his waste made matters even worse in the tank.

My mandarin is thriving because of the fact that the liverock is both plentiful and very old. It came out of a very well established tank and the pod population is tremendous. It never takes frozen or flakes, but it hunts pods constantly. My tank stays at about 82 degrees.

The lighting usta be metal halide, but when I decided that the only coral/invert I really cared for was a BTA, I switched over to PC lighting. It has worked out well. That was about a year ago, and the bulbs are good for 18 months on these. The bryopsis was thriving long before I changed lighting.

I've been thinking and I believe the only real change I need to make is swapping the clowns, moving the BTA and building that hood. Adding a lion would be nice, but not at the expense of my smaller fish.
 
An idea would be to try and locate that slug that eats this stuff. This may help in your battle when you decide to turn the lights off. If the infestation is that bad... then try and remove as much as you can by hand... then introdcue this slug. I am by no means a specialist in aquariums but I read a few articles on the net about this algea and this slug might be your way out.

Jc
 
when you deprive bryopsis of light, does it actually kill it, or go dormant. I noticed you said when you put your rock back in the tank, then it grows back. Is this because your rock was reintroduced into a tank with bryopsis, or because the bryopsis is coming out of hybernation? I do not know a lot about marine algae, but a lot of the fungus, and molds that grow in yours and my invironment just goes dormant untill their environmental condtions improve.
 
The slug you mention is a paticular species of nudibranch that is both very expensive and very delicate. The things are upwards of $60 each and the slightest damage to them kills them.

The other question in regards to dormancy is a simple one. In a word, no. I've taken bryopsis covered rocks from the 55g, put them in my 10g quarantine tank, let the bryopsis melt, then moved them to the 29g with no further bryopsis showing up. Nice thought though, I considered that at first as well when I was considering adding rock to my 29g. I didn't want to spread the infestation. I took a chance and it paid off.
 
Hi,

The only thing I would be concerned is that when this algae die off, they might release a lot of nutrients. I guess that the way around that would be lots of water changes.

...That is the problem with the mandarins... They just need live food to really thrive and be happy.
 
Hi Corax,
The saga continues, I see. It sounds like a decent plan, but a couple of things concern me a little. First, it looks like you're packing a lot of fish into the 29. Second, I have seen posts about BTAs eating mandarins, and might worry that being in a smaller tank may increase the possibility of this happening.

Other that that I have nothing to offer. I have always had a few threads of bryopsis in the 20, with plenty of NO3 and PO4, but have never had an outbreak. I have always attributed it to having an embarrassingly large population of grazers, especially hermits and astrea snails, but maybe it's just luck.

Good luck.
 
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