Removing brown algae from Montipora Digitata

[cdw79]

I've had this digi for several weeks now, but after a week of it being closed up for awhile, although the polyps have been fully extended again for 2 weeks or so, it seems some brown algae grew on the ends during that time. It seems like it's bothering the coral a bit, and figured I need to find a way to get it off. Is there a way to do it where I can keep it in the tank? It was a bit of a nightmare to glue down. I was anxious to use a tooth brush not knowing if the bristles would be too tough on it / the adjacent polyps and also wasn't sure if they were treated with anything that could be damaging to the water (like some dish sponges are). Anyone have any tips for getting this off the coral without causing any damage?

 

[soymilk]

I've used a coral feeding tool/ turkey baster to gently try to blow off the algae in the past. If its hair algae you can use tweezers and just pull it out

i've found that if you get rid of most the algae, if the coral is happy it'll regrow over that area

 

[cdw79]

So I tried to gently rub it off (largely unsuccessfully) but it seems slightly more like a brown hair algae than it does a "flat" (?) algae you'd get on the glass for example. For lack of a better word it seems like a turf almost- the only other places I see this are every now and then on the powerhead where I can tweezer it off in chunks or to a much lesser extent on the back wall. It won't come off with flow- it's in a very high flow area- so what would be a better tool? It's not in chunks like it sometimes is on the powerhead

 

[cdw79]

Would an unused toothbrush be safe?

 

[mdb_talon]

Probably not what you want to do, but when I have had tips die and become algae covered I snip the dead parts off with bone cutters. If the coral is now healthy and happy it should grow over the cut area quickly before the algae takes control again.