Help please!! Invasive coral!!

yamilyyyy · Jun 3, 2018

So I have a 54 bowlfront tank, everything is growing in quite nicely but at the top I have this invasive ugly brown/purple zoathid and it’s rapidly growing and over taking all the nicer zoas I have.

So my question is what would be the best way to remove them and not contaminate the water or stress out other corals?

happyhourhero · Jun 3, 2018

Remove rock and sell. I resisted and tried everything in the reef world before I came to the ultimate conclusion that you just gotta get it out and chalk it up as a lesson learned.

Palyzoa · Jun 3, 2018

I agree with with @happyhourhero I would remove the rocks and either A, Sell the rock or rocks. Or B remove the rocks and let it bake in the sun outside then bleach it, Rinse it, bake it in the sun.

PDR · Jun 3, 2018

I just went through this yesterday. Had to throw out 2 large rocks and do an almost complete rescape. Not fun...

Swoody · Jun 3, 2018

I had a pretty large rock with 10 or so Nuclear Green Palys on it.... a year later there were..... oh maybe 50 of them and some were as large as a 50cent piece.... I had to let it go before setting up my new tank....they loved the conditions in there!!!

yamilyyyy · Jun 3, 2018

Thank you everyone, I’m thinking I will go ahead and remove the polyps that are usable off the rock and then put them on a frag rack meanwhile the rock dries out with them.

yamilyyyy · Jun 3, 2018

@Swoody @PDR @Palyzoa @happyhourhero

tiggs · Jun 3, 2018

As others have said, selling the rock or manual removal is your best bet. One thing to be cautious of is palytoxin if you plan on the boiling/scraping/baking route of removal. Pretty much every palytoxin story we hear about on the news is someone fed up with some ugly brownish polyp overtaking their tank and resorting to extreme removal methods, only to make the toxin airborne. If you do go that route, gloves, protective eyewear, respirator, and open air environment are your best friends.

It sounds like you just plan on fragging the good polyps and letting the rock dry out, but figured I'd mention that just in case. Good luck!

Swoody · Jun 3, 2018

Just

yamilyyyy said:
Thank you everyone, I’m thinking I will go ahead and remove the polyps that are usable off the rock and then put them on a frag rack meanwhile the rock dries out with them.

Just be careful.... you’ve probably seen the recent threads on paytoxin exposure and how badly that can go.

VolStateAquatics · Jun 3, 2018

I’ll take it [emoji23]

Scorpius · Jun 3, 2018

I like to use zoanthids as a buffer in between Acropora.

yamilyyyy · Jun 3, 2018

Scorpius said:
I like to use zoanthids as a buffer in between Acropora.

What do you mean?

ArowanaLover1902 · Jun 4, 2018

The tank looks beautiful, plenty of people will be thrilled to buy that rock

yamilyyyy · Jun 4, 2018

Thank you very much!! @ArowanaLover1902

Lasse · Jun 4, 2018

Please - read this thread if you don´t have read it before.

yamilyyyy said:
and it’s rapidly growing and over taking all the nicer zoas

My thinking - what´s helping this species to dominate over other zooas? Take it carefully.

Sincerely Lasse

erky · Jun 4, 2018

been there done that, funny how the ugly ones always grow like weeds, I currently have some yellow palys that are spreading like the plague in 1386, not able to remove the rock they are in as it is a support rock for my scape and everything attached to that rock will fall. I have considered my clubs laser to blow them up, but if they are bad palys that wouldn't be a good idea right...

yamilyyyy · Jun 4, 2018

Lasse said:
Please - read this thread if you don´t have read it before.

My thinking - what´s helping this species to dominate over other zooas? Take it carefully.

Sincerely Lasse

Hmm maybe the fact that I add a crap ton of calcium but then again they don’t really need a lot of that so I’m not sure.

yamilyyyy · Jun 4, 2018

erky said:
been there done that, funny how the ugly ones always grow like weeds, I currently have some yellow palys that are spreading like the plague in 1386, not able to remove the rock they are in as it is a support rock for my scape and everything attached to that rock will fall. I have considered my clubs laser to blow them up, but if they are bad palys that wouldn't be a good idea right...

And I already tried scraping them, no not a good idea. Plus I’m pretty sure I almost died my boyfriend and I inhaled the toxin next morning felt like complete crap..