Brightwell Razor Experience

[Dhaleillama]

Thanks. My 10 yr old powder blue tang does not appreciate tangs or fox faces. I've had to bring a few back to the LFS after being tormented and have chosen to stick with the PB even though he's a terrible algae eater (unless it comes in sheets).

id be grumpy with new friends at that age too its ok lol

 

[NicolasToro]

Not a lot of info on this product so i thought i should share my experience.
Had a really bad case of GHA in my reef and felt like the battle was never gonna end. Went to my LFS and was told Razor was the solution. Didnt wanted to add any chemical but gha kept coming back so i gave it a try.
did the treatment as intructed in the bottle just a little less than recomended.
GHA started to die off as well as bubble algae. After some serious brushing and water change the tank was free of algae one month later.
the product did work for me but the chaeto suffered and some corals didnt liked it.
now i have a cyano problem but i guess thats reefing.
cheers

 

[42Freeman]

I used microbacter clean and did not see any change for the life of the whole bottle

 

[Moe K]

....
After a few weeks and some rebound with the corals, I started dosing Marine Razor slightly less than the instructions suggested. My LPS don't like it. Hammers, Elegance and Acans are retracted for hours after a dose. I've probably lost a Gonastrea and a smaller Hydnophora frag ... That said, it seems to work. It made a solid dent in the GHA. I've been maintenance dosing 10-12ml every 3rd day with a tiny water change (5g) in between to vacuum off the substrate and rock. I'm also changing out the filter sock daily. Most things seem to be surviving the treatment. There is still too much GHA. I'm going to add MicroBater Clean and 7 to the mix - this could get ugly. I plan to test phosphates (Hana) and nitrates (Salifert) daily and dose as necessary to keep in the 0.04-0.08 and 8-15ppm ranges respectably.

Fingers crossed I can get the GHA down to a maintainable level.

FWIW, the Razor looks suspiciously like the flocculant I add to my swimming pool each spring when opening it.

I know I am late to the thread but this seems to be the only one I found specifically on the results of razor. How did your treatment go? What were your results in no3/po4 testing along with ph during the treatment?

I have had many tanks and always just lived with a little bit of bubble algae but my current tank has had an explosion of them (thousands of bubble algae spread through out) and my emerald crabs can not keep up. I also got thick turf algae. Now I am completely considering to venture where I would never go with a product like razor.

I have read many reports and seems almost split down the middle where 50% loose corals and another 50% have no loss. I am thinking this is caused by a lack of testing nutrients during the treatment. I can only imagine that po4 and nitrates will have a huge spike in the mass dying off of any algae. I also read reports that razor will lower ph. This may be why Brightwell also recommends running microbacter7 along with the treatment. Another question is can you run gfo during the treatment to maintain a balance in po4 without stripping the treatment?

Sorry, lots of questions. If we can get closer to the answers of why some loose corals and some have complete success than we can get closer to a product with safer dosing instructions.

 

[Kongar]

I know I am late to the thread but this seems to be the only one I found specifically on the results of razor. How did your treatment go?

I can’t speak for others, but I’ll chime in with an update as the OP. Eventually, all the algae came back. So in the end, I just caused harm. Razor went in the trash along with anything else. It’s been so long since I’ve done this, I’ve done other things to control the algae. 1) I completely redid my rockwork. The main reason for this was so I could more easily remove the rocks, and scrub the algae off. 2) I’ve stopped adding chemicals to my tank. I think the only thing I’d use ever again would be reef flux - but even then, it’d have to be a desperate bryopsis infestation. 3) I added significantly more CUC to my tank. Shout out to my urchin workhorse.

 

[IPT]

I can’t speak for others, but I’ll chime in with an update as the OP. Eventually, all the algae came back. So in the end, I just caused harm. Razor went in the trash along with anything else. It’s been so long since I’ve done this, I’ve done other things to control the algae. 1) I completely redid my rockwork. The main reason for this was so I could more easily remove the rocks, and scrub the algae off. 2) I’ve stopped adding chemicals to my tank. I think the only thing I’d use ever again would be reef flux - but even then, it’d have to be a desperate bryopsis infestation. 3) I added significantly more CUC to my tank. Shout out to my urchin workhorse.

Resurrecting an old thread - did the Bubble Algae come back too?

 

[Kongar]

Resurrecting an old thread - did the Bubble Algae come back too?

Yup. The tank is over three years old now, and all the algae came back except the bryopsis. Reef flux killed that off, and imo is the only chemical that performed its job in the long term. I’ve completely stopped using all algae control, dinox, razor, vibrant, whatever. Algae control is performed by my tuxedo urchin. I feed my fish only twice a week now and my parameters are perfect - and I STILL get quite a bit of algae growth. I just decided to live with it - it’s just how my tank is. Corals are healthy, fish are healthy, I manually remove the algae as best I can during water changes. But it’s impossible to eliminate.

 

[Rob3D2018]

I can’t speak for others, but I’ll chime in with an update as the OP. Eventually, all the algae came back. So in the end, I just caused harm. Razor went in the trash along with anything else. It’s been so long since I’ve done this, I’ve done other things to control the algae. 1) I completely redid my rockwork. The main reason for this was so I could more easily remove the rocks, and scrub the algae off. 2) I’ve stopped adding chemicals to my tank. I think the only thing I’d use ever again would be reef flux - but even then, it’d have to be a desperate bryopsis infestation. 3) I added significantly more CUC to my tank. Shout out to my urchin workhorse.

Kongar, did you stop doing the maintenance dose according to the instructions? Unfortunately, my CuC was a feast for my puffer. Adding a lot of CuC to a 175-gal tank is expensive. I've started dosing Razor but will keep it at the initial dose rate. I want to go slow and in smaller quantities.

How is your reef tank doing these days?

 

[Kongar]

Kongar, did you stop doing the maintenance dose according to the instructions? Unfortunately, my CuC was a feast for my puffer. Adding a lot of CuC to a 175-gal tank is expensive. I've started dosing Razor but will keep it at the initial dose rate. I want to go slow and in smaller quantities.

How is your reef tank doing these days?

It’s doing fine. I stopped the maintenance dose. My tank hasn’t seen anything except fresh saltwater and my hands pulling/scrubbing algae off rocks for I think well over a year. Algae came back once I stopped dosing. It’s really never gone away, but for a while I had it pretty much under control and only visible if you went looking for it. Tank looked the best it ever did.

Then I had a light break and instead of replacing the ai prime, I upgraded to a small t5 fixture. That sent the tank through a tail spin - like an ugly phase cycle all over again. Bad dinos again, replaced by cyano, replaced by a bad algae outbreak. I’m currently fighting the algae and I think winning the battle. Basically I’ve decided that algae is good and healthy - it’s a refugium in the display tank because I have no sump. I just don’t care if it’s there anymore. I just have to harvest the algae every now and then. If I don’t want it there, I’ll have to upgrade to a bigger tank with a sump and utility fish. That’s my new philosophy and it seems to be working better than anything I’ve ever done.

Filter floss change out twice a week
50% water change every two weeks
Running carbon and gfo
Manual removal during water changes
Urchin and starry blenny help

 

[Outlaw Corals]

Thank you for sharing, someone suggested that I use the razor just a couple of weeks ago to help with my high nutrients, so I researched the product and decided not to use it so after reading your post I sure am happy that I did not use that stuff, I’m sorry you lost some stuff and I hope everything else recovers back to the way it was, I wouldn’t wait till the weekend to do another water change. I would probably do it on Tuesday the earliest Wednesday the latest. Good luck.

 

[Kongar]

Thank you for sharing, someone suggested that I use the razor just a couple of weeks ago to help with my high nutrients, so I researched the product and decided not to use it so after reading your post I sure am happy that I did not use that stuff, I’m sorry you lost some stuff and I hope everything else recovers back to the way it was, I wouldn’t wait till the weekend to do another water change. I would probably do it on Tuesday the earliest Wednesday the latest. Good luck.

It's just a data point and anecdotal. Not trying to bash the product, just trying to start a discussion about whether people have had success with it, how does it work, etc. The stuff does kill algae, and plenty of people say they've had success with it. I noticed strange negative things in my tank after using it - but to be fair, I'm not a very good reefer either so who knows what really happened.

I've been on the "stop looking for a cure in a bottle" camp for a while now. The person writing this reply is a very different reefer than the person who made the OP.

While things are far from perfect, I've got good growth on finicky acros and having better success than I did before. I shudder at all the products I put in my tank - and I thought I was "taking it slow" lol Dinox, razor, vibrant, reef flux (which did actually work good), chemiclean, reef roids, phyto plankton, etc. So stupid. Now the only thing my tank gets is frozen food and fresh saltwater - thats it

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

For folks new to this thread, I’ll reiterate the points I made a couple of years ago in it that the nature of this product is unclear and some of its noted effects seem inconsistent with its description. That concerns me. It doesn’t mean it can’t work, just that secret additives that do unusual things sends up a red warning flag.

 

[Moe K]

Against my better judgment and just so sick of bubble algae I went ahead and tried it. It was awesome for the first week with crystal clear water and bubble algae dying. About 3 weeks later and I got the worst case of dinos I ever seen. Now I still have bubble algae and unstoppable dinos lol. Actually I might have hold on the dinos but it has lasted months of agony. I won't ever be trying this stuff again.