Cleaning liverock.

[hamiltonguy]

I have alot of GHA on my liverock and I was just wondering how much damage would I do If I took out a few of the pieces that it's on and scrubbed them in fresh water?

edit: it's bryopsis not GHA (just did some reading)

 

[jp634]

cleaning

cleaning

buy some snails. I would not scrub the rock!!!! I personally scrubbed a piece in my garage the size of your fist for about 15 seconds and what was growing on this rock almost killed me. I could not breath very good for a week and my wife who was in the basement of our home went to the hospital for some treatment the doctor gave her some extra for me. still today 2 months later I still cannot take a breath in. some soft corals and polyps are very very toxic. I found that out the hard way by not asking and just doing.

 

[vikubz]

I have scrubbed LR before without incident. When you do your next water change you can brush them off and swish them around in the old water.

You can also pull the HA out by hand, but you'll need to find and fix the source of the nutrients that are feeding the algae, otherwise it will just come right back.

 

[hamiltonguy]

Well I got rid of the source of the nutrients by using carbon and setting up a little HOB mini fuge with chaeto. But I think it spread since bryopsis can also reproduce asexually or if a piece breaks off and attaches somewhere else.