Jhoekstra84
Community Member
I have some Hawaiian ding dangs and some orange oxide’s that are growing like crazy and I’m concerned they are going to overgrow the other Zoa’s around them and cause them to die. Should I trim them back, if so, how?
Zoa overgrowth
- Thread starter Jhoekstra84
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DIYreefer
Well-Known Member
In my experience, if you have one type of zoa that is really outpacing the others in growth, you will likely end up with a rock full of one type, with a few others sprinkled in if you're lucky.
Fortunately, fragging zoas isn't very hard. For fragging polyps on an established piece of live rock I like to use a combination of a box cutter/razor blade and an old butter knife (seriously). I've found that you can sort of pry up underneath the zoas mat with the butter knife (you will basically scrape up a little bit of the surface of the live rock, keeping the mat intact). Then simply cut between the polyps (or straight through some polyps if you don't care about losing a few) to separate what you have cut off into smaller frags.
All of this said, BE CAREFUL. Palytoxin while being a very rare issue, can potentially be life threatening. Don't disregard proper PPE when fragging any coral, but particularly when fragging zoas/palys. Hth, good luck!
Fortunately, fragging zoas isn't very hard. For fragging polyps on an established piece of live rock I like to use a combination of a box cutter/razor blade and an old butter knife (seriously). I've found that you can sort of pry up underneath the zoas mat with the butter knife (you will basically scrape up a little bit of the surface of the live rock, keeping the mat intact). Then simply cut between the polyps (or straight through some polyps if you don't care about losing a few) to separate what you have cut off into smaller frags.
All of this said, BE CAREFUL. Palytoxin while being a very rare issue, can potentially be life threatening. Don't disregard proper PPE when fragging any coral, but particularly when fragging zoas/palys. Hth, good luck!
