Are there any toxins in marine cloves?

[deputydog95]

I'm really struggling to keep them in check. Nothing seems to eat them, so I've resorted to scrubbing them off with a stiff plastic brush or a toothbrush in the more delicate spots. Nothing eats them and I'm apprehensive about trying the chemical treatment... I was hoping if I keep beating them back, they'll eventually die off.

I'm actually winning the war against the cloves, and the tank looks pretty good now, but my SPS monti's all seem to be in a perpetual state of being ****ed off since I started getting more aggressive with the scrubbing.

I generally only do mass scrubbing right before a water change as a precaution, but I'm still having the issues with the monti species.

Maybe they're unrelated? Who knows... The other SPS species look great, but the monti's that remain either are dying off or just look terrible.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[Scrubber_steve]

make sure you use activated carbon when scrapping them to take out the excess toxins they release when stressed.

 

[davocean]

Absolutely they release toxins of some kind when disturbed.
Years ago when I had them I tried scrubbing too, and yes it can look like you are winning, they scrub fairly easy, but every coral in my tank receded something awful immediately.
All my euphyllia looked like skeletons, luckily they bounced back, w/ the help of a large WC and carbon.

There's a thread floating around here on fluke tabs or something that does get rid of them.

They do come back no matter how much you scrub

Fenbendazole, search that

 

[deputydog95]

I've read the posts on Fenbendazole. I'm just really concerned about killing the cloves, but having some nasty side effect.

I may have to give that a go. I'm tired of looking at them....

 

[deputydog95]

Does anyone know what cloves actually use to survive? Nutrients in the water column, detritus blowing around, light, etc?

And I wonder how they don't grow out of control in the wild since it appears they have no natural predators we can add to the tanks.