Looking for help: $500.00 Reward

xmetalfan99 · Sep 5, 2011

do you have access to a saw like the Inland DFS-100? If so, cut the rock just below the GSP.

mchippo · Sep 5, 2011

Stoneyj33 said:
What other types of corals are In the tank? Are there a lot of softies?

Mostly SPS and LPS. I have few zoa colonies, a few shrooms and rhodactis.

Stoneyj33 · Sep 5, 2011

I would buy either a matted filefish or a two barred rabbit fish. Place them in a holding tank and feed them gsp. This will train them to target it as food. Both fish pefer softies over other corals. However if they are well fed they usually won't touch it. Once it's used to eating gsp add it to your display and decrease your tanks feeding so it continues to target the gsp.
I'd give it two months and it will be mowed down.

mchippo · Sep 5, 2011

macawmagic said:
try a fluke tab. They kill normal star polyps. I believe you would need just a little bit of the dust of the tab to kill it all. aka wave the tab around in the tank a couple times so the outsides dissolve. It kills xenia, star polyps.

found out because it's used as a dip to kill flatworms, but if you don't rinse the sps off after...the little residue thats in the water on the sps is enough to nuke a tank of xenia and star polyps.

hope that helps.

Will the fluke tab damage the SPS long term? I would not be able to rinse any of the corals off...they are all encrusted on the rocks....

the.fish.guy · Sep 5, 2011

get some holdfast underwater epoxy, flatten into a sheet and slowly smother the gsp, if it starts growing over it is easy enough just to peel it off.

mchippo · Sep 5, 2011

-Logzor said:
Try this:

Step 1: Go to Home Depot or various other hardware stores.
Step 2: Buy Water Weld or Aquamend or any other reef safe underwater epoxy.
Step 3: Work the epoxy into a large thin later, like a pancake
Step 4: Apply the epoxy loosely over an afflicted area.
Step 5: Remove epoxy 1 month later, this stuff is pretty easy to pull off unless you really smash it into the rock.
Step 6: Repeat to all the afflicted areas in the tank.

This is a patchwork / slow approach to wiping them out but you should have some degree of success.

Thanks...but it is too wide-spread. Any remnants would quickly grow back.

fish&corals · Sep 5, 2011

emerald crab will eat GSP .. i have a sump with 10 of them in it .. if you want to try that i might be able to ship you one or two .. i know when i had GSP in my tank i added 2 emerald and they mowed right through it then i took them out ..

Reef Pets · Sep 5, 2011

Are you sure they are star polyps? From your description ( They are not on a carpet. They spread via thin, vein like "roots." ) they sound like Hydroids to me. Many Hydroids look like a star polyps and they reproduce very quickly.

Raggamuffin · Sep 5, 2011

fast and simple... people keep spouting the same things over and over but have you tried a turkey baster with boiling RO/DI? with as much volumn of water as you have you could shoot in 3 or 4 blasts and never budge your tank temp while still nuking a faily large chunk nightly.

Saltgator · Sep 5, 2011

I know they aren't coral friends, but my vote is a Raccoon Butterfly. I have had one in a tank with lps and sps. As long as they aquire the taste, they will pick them clean. Do they appear like little Aiptaisia? Just be prepared to remove them to a QT tank for a few weeks after the last ones are seen and no others pop back up. Usually mine had a taste for Aiptaisia, but decided to take on xenia and gsp before I got him out. This is my best guess, but good luck.

Reef keeper · Sep 5, 2011

Try this nudi

Phyllodesmium briareum Nudibranch

Apparently a natural predator of em

Reef Breeders · Sep 5, 2011

Take the rocks out and burn the polyps with a soldering iron, boil the large stuff.

ReeferDave · Sep 5, 2011

Sounds like Bryopsis you need to run carbon in your reactor or sump and cut your lighting back to half of what your running it now. I had the same problem, this worked for me

Heffe01 · Sep 5, 2011

Chocolate chip starfish will eat them. And there easy to account for and remove from the system after there under control. Just dont feed them any kind of seafood diet and they will go to town. There easy to keep any eye on and remove from wanted corals.