Containing growth?

Last night I was doing a water change and thought "what the heck" so I tried to pull off some Zoa's that are on the farthest edge of the rock using a long tweezers. All I managed to do was mangle about half a dozen of them which promptly snotted all over the tank. I siphoned off the goo, and today they look no worse for the wear.

I thought for sure I'd see some serious damage where I tried to pull them off but nope!

In a few weeks I have to break the tank down to move. At that point I may try again with the rock out of the water. I just don't know how I can get these off of live rock in any successful manner without basically just scrubbing them off with a stiff brush =(
 
They do not pull off with tweezers. That is not the way.

I like to do it the easy way and just use a hammer and sharp chisel.
You can also take a exacto knife and cut the mat between the polyps and then cut under the polyp and cut at a angle that would take rock off if it was crummbley enough.

Or just be paitent and place rock rubble next to the colony and let it grow and spread that way.


Scrub them off with a brush???

Are you freaking crazy?
 
MUCHO REEF said:
JeF4y, it's not a stupid question at all my friend. In gact, many here are glad that you ask it as we all learn from reading and sharing.

Mfinn has given you some very good advice here. A greyhound loves to run, a bird by nature loves to fly, fish swim, corals natural want to grow, thrive and prosper as well. It will be a grave mistake to try and stop, stunt or slow their growth. Whenever I experience such growth, I won't even touch them. You are obviously doing something right via providing adequate current, lighting, parameters etc or maybe you have it in a sweet spot in your tank for optimal growth. I agree with Mfinn and a few others in that it is best to place small chip rocks around the base of the colony and as they spread, you can cut through the base of the new growth with a very sharp scapel or dedicated scissors. Do not use tweezers to pull or seperate them from the mother colony and try not to cut through any of the polyps and you'll be fine. You can either sale, trade or give the new frags away. I would however suggest that you leave the new frags in the tank for a couple of days before you remove them from the tank.

Again, not a stupid question at all, but I tip my hat to you for allowing your colony to in fact grow into a mature colony.

2 thumbs up from me
Click to expand...


JeF4y, I don't understand, 5 of us suggested you frag them and how, so why would you pull them off with tweezers and destroy them? I don't understand !!!! No need to scrub.
 
Okay, perhaps what wasn't clear in my original post is that I'm looking to see if I can contain their growth to one rock. If I chip away the rock, well, I'm not containing the growth, I'm making the rock smaller. Think of people who have mushroom problems, or pulsing xenia all over their tanks. That's my issue, but with one type of zoanthid. I'm not sure how this simple concept was missed, but anyhow...

The 'scrub them off with a brush' comment is more of a joke as to how tough these things are on the rock and resilient they are. Sorry for the lack of smiley that got some of you guys all riled up.

My goal isn't necessarily to get frags for others. So putting rubble next to this rock wasn't really the solution I was looking for. Again, it's keeping them on the one rock they are on and not having them take over a massive portion of my tank. Trimming them back, so to speak.

Again, yes, they are beautiful. Yes, I actually had a hard time getting them to grow. The LONG extended stalk colony picture up top withered to almost nothing and then in a few months literally exploded in population on this rock. Now they're growing like wildfire. (which is weird because they now have almost no stalk, and are just the polyps on the mat)

Realizing that it's going to be impossible to get under the mat while on this rock, pretty much my only options are.

1. Leave them grow and take over portions I don't want covered.
2. Chip away the rock (which will only be possible/easy ONCE, when I move in a few weeks and the tank is broken down. After that it won't happen due to rock-scape)
3. Put some rubble next to it to capture the growth that way and trade/sell them off.

Out of those, I think I will simply go for the rubble idea because it's about the only real way I will be able to keep them in one place (by removing the places they ultimately go to).

My thought with the tweezers in the first place was to see if I could get under or grab the mat and lift it. Obviously that didn't work. Getting a razor under it while in my tank on a jagged piece of liverock isn't happening either. So, lesson learned.

I hope that clears this up. I will use less sarcasm and more smileys in the future.

Kind regards,

-Jeff
 
Hey thanks for the clarification. In that case, your only viable option is to isolate the rock and just let them grow. You don't have to place the rock in a corner or anything, but just place it on the substrate and don't allow any rocks to touch the rest of the reef. I'd place it on the front of your reef and just enjoy it. The growth will cover the rock and migrate down to the sand. Then you can simply trim off the excess with a sharp dedicated scapel.

Warning - persistant moving of frags or mature colonies can alter, slow, stop or dramatically change growth rate. If the 3 options you listed isn't the course you want to take, I would recommend you place them once as mentioned above and leave them. Much continued success with growing them, you obviously have the blue thumb we all so many covet. So, now you can share all of your parameters including lighting etc to help those who wish to have the measure of success that you have my friend. We bow down to you Oh Great One, LOL.

Good luck, Mucho Reef
 
Sorry, typing too fast...I meant to say...you obviously have the blue thumb so many of us covet.
 
Thanks for the comments.

Looking at what has been said about affecting growth, etc, when I move the tank I will try to isolate this rock so it can grow "as nature intends", but have a better understanding of what my options are if I do need contain the growth at all.

LOL... My luck with these has been just that. Luck. I have no idea how they grew, as I was pretty sure they were as good as dead, but BOOM then they did!

As for my lighting, flow, etc, I have them about 1/2 way up in my 60 cube which is under an 8x24 ATI powermodule, and to be totally honest I don't even know what bulbs are in it. It's a mixture of 4 of one type (which was like a blue plus), one fiji purple (for color only), a 10,000k super actinic (or something) and a couple others. All of it was recommended by the Reefgeek folks.

For flow, I previously had 3 Koralia 3's running and 1 K1. I would only run 2 of the 3 K3's at once, they would rotate on a 12hr cycle. I got sick of the rattling and the amount of hardware in the tank so I put in a single Vortech MP-40w which I run at about 60% on Reefcrest mode which seems to do very well through the tank. Seems the vortech made a huge difference where my Finger coral (spaghetti coral?) got HUGE in a couple months, my Trumpet & Torch corals are now extending their feeders MUCH more than they ever have before and are growing quite well, but my acans died very quickly and a piece of birdsnest that was growing wonderfully just inexplicably died. All water parms remained the same.

Salinity 1.025
pH swing 8.1-8.4 (depending on the day)
kH 11
Cal 440
Magnesium 1350

I feed the fish (2 clowns, 1 lawnmower blenny & a green mandarin) pellets generally every day (sometimes I may skip a day, and yes, my mandarin eats pellets - go ahead and be jealous over that one LOL), and dose with Vitamin C, Zoomax (although I ran out a few weeks ago) and Chromax. As well as adding PhytoFeast for the pods in my sump. I feed Rod's frozen foods once a week (and today is the day - also, sidenote, Rods is how I got my mandarin to eat ANYTHING. It took 2 days of spotfeeding rods and he took to it. Now, he eats anything) and I spot-feed mysis weekly to the acans, trumpets, torch, suns & even give a touch to my rics. All of my frozen foods are laced with garlic & selecon.

The phyto REALLY made my feather duster population skyrocket (if you look and think you see aiptasia, it's a feather duster. Really, I'm pretty new but definitely know that difference).

Ultimately, I probably put too much crap (additives) in the tank, but honestly everything seems to be doing quite well (with the exception of the mystery death of the birdsnest which could likely have been the flow change) and the Acans which went to hell when I left on vacation for 2 weeks and they just aren't recovering. The tank was fed, but nothing was spotfed during those 2 weeks.

Here's a couple of pics I shot this morning.

DSC_0048.jpg

DSC_0052.jpg

DSC_0055.jpg

DSC_0056.jpg
 
Hey thanks for sharing that information. It was great reading it and I'm sure it will go along way in helping someone who has those polyps.

I agree, just isolate them in a place that you can still enjoy them and just let that puppy continue to grow.

With all of the coralline growth, I can tell that your parameters must be spot on and thanks again for sharing and engaging us on this topic. Very helpful, good luck.

Mucho Reef
 
If you are breaking down the tank in the near future to move it. You could try and get that rock on the bottom in the sand. That is if it works out with the aquascape. Maybe another option. Good luck
 
I think having a calcium reactor to keep my alkalinity and calcium up and stable has really contributed toward the coraline growth. When I break down the tank, my goal is to drill, rod & stack the rocks in basically a tri-pod type manner. Will see how all that works =)
 
JeF4y said:
I think having a calcium reactor to keep my alkalinity and calcium up and stable has really contributed toward the coraline growth. When I break down the tank, my goal is to drill, rod & stack the rocks in basically a tri-pod type manner. Will see how all that works =)
Click to expand...

Whatever works is what I always say. Just let them grow. The minute you go messing with something that isn't broken....it breaks. Here's an idea, only if you can get away with it. Place this rock on top of another rock, then let the growth progress down onto that rock, then remove the mother colony.

Sounds like a good idea on the tri pod method.

Good luck
 
Just down here painting this weekend. Moving in about 2 weeks but the reef won't move until the 4th of July weekend.


Will keep you posted :bounce1:
 
Go freaking figure. In my move to Atlanta, I lost VERY little, but these zoas were on the list. Argh!

But no fish loss and almost all the corals made it.

BTW, if you've never smelled dead zoanthids, consider yourself lucky and pray you live your life not encountering such. Wow was that RANK!
 
That sucks to hear. I was skimming through to see what brought this thread back and to post my experience with the same issue lol issue ya right....I guess for sake of future good growth I will say this. I have a rock that has been completely covered now with zoas and noticed that they actually started to just grow off the rock and start sellf fragging. This actually makes it very easy to reach in and grab them as close to the rock as possible and tug/pull them off.
 
I also want to add to be careful when handling zoas. Wear gloves and safety glasses if your handling them, also be sure to wash hands after your hands have been in the tank. The toxins in them are no joke and well ruin your day/month. Good luck.
 
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