getting rid of xenia and button polyps

[NYCMAN]

My xenia and polyps have over grown my 200G reef tank, and are now crowding out my LPS and SPS. I have considered starting over from scratch, but I have invested much, and my LPS and SPS are thriving. I am have considered pruning the xenia and polyps but this seems a lot of work, locating and cutting each stalk. Probs a few weeks of work, and incomplete. I am more seriously considering attaching a long 15 meter flexible silicone hose (1.5 inch internal diameter) to a wet dry shop vac and vacuuming them off the walls, rock and substrate. I will report back on how well this does or does not work. I believe if I get the hose to create a suction on the rock, wall, or substrate, the pressure will be great enough to pull the polyp stem clean off and take all of the coral into the tube and out to the vacuum. I know this sounds overkill, but also maybe innovative. Ha ha ha.

 

[Jaebster]

The wall should be easy with a credit card or plastic scraper. For the xenia on the rocks, use 5/8 or 3/4 flex tubing and while siphoning water in to a bucket, use your thumb to stop the flow on the suction side, cut the base of the stalks of the xenia and suck up the xenia into bucket. With the remaining flesh of the xenia on rocks, I just tried to scrape if off and injected tiny bit of kalk to kill of the rest.