No light for a month but bryopsis and GSP live!?

[alizarin]

I have 10lb of live rock from a nano that's covered by what I think is green Bryopsis algae (nothing will eat it). I put it in a covered bucket with an airstone for a month in my kitchen and last week I put the rocks back in my tank. The bryopsis was there but completely white so I figured I'd taken care of it... but now a week later and it's back 100% and green and a few polyps of the GSP I couldn't save are back too.

What the heck hapened? The bucket was not by a window.

[poppin_fresh]

Obviously they are not totally photosynthetic. I'm no biologist, but I believe they turned white because of the lack of light (no chlorophyl?) but they where still able to uptake nutrients from the water column.

Many people are quick to blame their lights during an algae outbreak. Most times you can leave the lights and take away the other nutrients and the algae will die. This is simply because it cannot live on light alone, as you have seen.

[alizarin]

I didn't "feed the bucket" though.

[poppin_fresh]

There was probably enough PO4 and NO3 saturated in the rocks it would feed the algae for a long time. There are also many kinds of micro-critters (plankton, etc.) that don't require light to live that could have kept the GSP alive. I doubt it thrived, but obviously survived.

[alizarin]

So I can't reasonbay expect to kill the bryopsis without killing everything - drying it out or soaking it fresh water for a few hours?

[vessxpress1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9371392#post9371392 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by poppin_fresh
There was probably enough PO4 and NO3 saturated in the rocks it would feed the algae for a long time. There are also many kinds of micro-critters (plankton, etc.) that don't require light to live that could have kept the GSP alive. I doubt it thrived, but obviously survived.

I agree with this answer. I've been fighting bryopsis too and I finally had to cook my rock. Putting the rock in a bucket with an air stone for only month isn't going to cut it.

To properly cook it, you need to rinse the rocks in buckets of saltwater every few weeks, change out the water in the bucket or tub when you do that, and it can take a couple of months. My rock's been in the cook tub for two months and it was still leaching nitrates.

Here, this is my thread. I will be updating it soon. Lots of pics for ID and the cooking process starts on pages 4 and 5. A lot of work left to do before the rock goes back in my tank.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=991103&highlight=Bryopsis+is+a+bad+BAD+algae

[vessxpress1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9371453#post9371453 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by alizarin
So I can't reasonbay expect to kill the bryopsis without killing everything - drying it out or soaking it fresh water for a few hours?

Soaking in freshwater will kill everything on the rock, good and bad. I wouldn't do that. You may as well leave it the way it is or you won't have any live rock. The only way I've seen people beat it is by cooking it properly for a couple of months in a covered tub with a powerhead. That's what I'm doing and pretty much my only option left. And I'm still worried that it will come back. So I'm going to tear down my tank, dump all the substrate, replace with new, and then put it back together. Put the rocks back in. I also have 3 more powerheads coming to add to the 3 existing in my 38 gallon.