Waging war on blue/brown palys

[installman]

Those who have seen my tank know I have probably a thousand of these things. They actually used to look pretty cool, but now they are really spreading fast. Growing on the back wall,the overflows, the starboard and almost every piece of rock in my tank. I figure I have 3 choices.


1 aiptasia x maybe 20 at a time waiting a week or so in between.
The problem i see with this method is I think they are reproducing faster than I would be killing them, and I am worried if i do more than 20 at a time they may crash the tank.

2 Remove all the rock with them on it and dry it then wash the rock and place it back in the tank slowly.

3 some combination of the above.

I am leaning towards # 3 myself.

I am open to suggestions any help is appreciated

 

[aguila88psi]

I think the main problem is palytoxin, if you kill too many at once it could do damage to neighboring corals, fish or yourself. Best thing to do in my opniion is to bleach and muratic acid bath the rocks, maybe do 25% now then a week later do the other 25% but always make sure you have enough rock to support the bacteria. Maybe get one of the ceramic cubes biomedia and place in the sump for a month or two and then slowly start killing the rocks. Good luck.

 

[installman]

I think the main problem is palytoxin, if you kill too many at once it could do damage to neighboring corals, fish or yourself. Best thing to do in my opniion is to bleach and muratic acid bath the rocks, maybe do 25% now then a week later do the other 25% but always make sure you have enough rock to support the bacteria. Maybe get one of the ceramic cubes biomedia and place in the sump for a month or two and then slowly start killing the rocks. Good luck.

Thanks Pedro
I have about 200 lbs of rock in the main tank and about 20 in the sump.I have a very light bioload fish wise for a 180 maybe 6 or 7 damsels the coral beauty i got from you a japanese swallowtai a mandarin dragonet and a royal gramma. That said do you think I could do like 1/2 the rock at a time? This would allow me to remove the starboard they are growing on and clean it as well. Bleach and Muratic acid bath? Are these things that resilient or is the muratic acid to get rid of the bleach?
I have never done either before so just asking.

 

[installman]

I should add that these palys were in the tank when I bought it and the previous owner did tell me I should get rid of them all when I moved the tank, but I liked them and didn't really want to have a "bare" tank so I kept some. Maybe next time I will listen.

 

[aguila88psi]

Lol, I too have kept the palys in my tank and soon had to rid them because they were taking over. Just follow the procedures listed in the link below, I would consider drying them out in the sun for more than a couple days then soak in RO/DI water for a week or more to just make sure the bleach is no longer in the rocks. You can probably get away with doing 50% of your rockwork but that'll be up to you to decide though.

It's nice to hear the coral beauty is alive and doing well, it was the fourth fish I ever purchased, I got it the same time I bought my blue hippo from creative aquariums , any pics?

Anyway, heres the link.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1914426

 

[shibby1]

Should take the rocks to the fish store and trade them for just live rock and new corals

 

[installman]

Should take the rocks to the fish store and trade them for just live rock and new corals

Lol not sure any lfs will take these paly covered rocks. But I guess i could make a few calls. I would gladly trade them for even dry rock.

 

[rogergolf66]

Should take the rocks to the fish store and trade them for just live rock and new corals

+1 sell and get new rock. they can come back to life even if you boil the rock at over 200 deg. and I don't recommend this as the toxins in the air can kill you. the point is almost impossible to kill this is one reason you have so many

 

[TampaSnooker]

I often simply grab them with good tongs/tweezers and rip them off the rock. Make sure to get the connective tissue. Boiling rock with zoanthids or palythoa is a good way to accidentally kill yourself. Very poor advice.

Alternatively, I have observed that Kenya Tree Coral will kill neighboring palys. It takes a bit longer, but if you plant one next to a patch of palys, it may be able to kill them. Then the tree coral can just be removed by the method mentioned above - it's easy to remove. Now the trick is finding KTC because most people give it the same respect as brown palys...

 

[ChadRaay86]

Thanks Pedro
I have about 200 lbs of rock in the main tank and about 20 in the sump.I have a very light bioload fish wise for a 180 maybe 6 or 7 damsels the coral beauty i got from you a japanese swallowtai a mandarin dragonet and a royal gramma. That said do you think I could do like 1/2 the rock at a time? This would allow me to remove the starboard they are growing on and clean it as well. Bleach and Muratic acid bath? Are these things that resilient or is the muratic acid to get rid of the bleach?
I have never done either before so just asking.

I just acid washed 60 percent of my rock to strip the phosphates out of them. That being said, I had no issues and I have a huge bioload. If you don't care about the rock (i.e. you wouldn't mind using different stuff) than you should pull it out little by little and replace it with new rock or acid wash it, wait a week and then put it back in.

Don't use bleach, ever IMO. I did the acid bath on some replacement rock I got and it did the trick. One of the pieces had probably 1000+ aiptasia and another was a green field of GHA and both were ripped right off by the acid bath.

Your best bet is to dump all of your old rock by either A. acid washing and then putting it back in or B. pulling it into two separate piles and removing and replacing it 50 percent at a time. You want to keep it all separated though, because you don't want the same problem coming back again later :headwally:

 

[kcsnook]

Why kill them when there are plenty of people in the hobby looking for free or cheap corals? Should be someone willing to take them off your hands? Maybe donate to a school's tank?

I have been in your shoes with palys before and I moved rocks around so they couldn't spread anymore to surrounding rocks.

 

[installman]

Lol, I too have kept the palys in my tank and soon had to rid them because they were taking over. Just follow the procedures listed in the link below, I would consider drying them out in the sun for more than a couple days then soak in RO/DI water for a week or more to just make sure the bleach is no longer in the rocks. You can probably get away with doing 50% of your rockwork but that'll be up to you to decide though.

It's nice to hear the coral beauty is alive and doing well, it was the fourth fish I ever purchased, I got it the same time I bought my blue hippo from creative aquariums , any pics?

Anyway, heres the link.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1914426

Thanks for the link Pedro. Here is a pic of the coral beauty, had to use the flash as the halides aren't on yet.


Roger Golf

+1 sell and get new rock. they can come back to life even if you boil the rock at over 200 deg. and I don't recommend this as the toxins in the air can kill you. the point is almost impossible to kill this is one reason you have so many

+1 These things have survived a lot already.

Tampa Snooker

I often simply grab them with good tongs/tweezers and rip them off the rock. Make sure to get the connective tissue. Boiling rock with zoanthids or palythoa is a good way to accidentally kill yourself. Very poor advice.

Alternatively, I have observed that Kenya Tree Coral will kill neighboring palys. It takes a bit longer, but if you plant one next to a patch of palys, it may be able to kill them. Then the tree coral can just be removed by the method mentioned above - it's easy to remove. Now the trick is finding KTC because most people give it the same respect as brown palys...

I am afraid they would nuke the tank if I tried removing them with tweezers in the tank, But maybe in a seperate bucket or something then rinse with clean saltwater may work? I have heard that gsp will grow over anything and kill it too but somehow these things have popped up in the middle of a gsp colony as well.

ChadRaay86
I am not "attached to these rocks and I have nothing against acid bath, but I am not battling phospate, or aiptasia or anything else except these stupid palys lol. That said it may be the best solution anyway. I will still have the possibility of them coming back as they are growing on my glass as well now.


Kcsnook

Why kill them when there are plenty of people in the hobby looking for free or cheap corals? Should be someone willing to take them off your hands? Maybe donate to a school's tank?

I have been in your shoes with palys before and I moved rocks around so they couldn't spread anymore to surrounding rocks.

Maybe I should post an ad on craigslist and see if someone wants them? I just don't want to give this problem to someone who doesn't understand what they are dealing with. These things are like Aiptasia, they pop up in random places all over and multiply fast.

 

[bigzman]

Installman,

I agree with KC, I too have this battle with Palys and Corky Fingers. As roger and others suggested sell rock. I went with 100 pounds of Marco Dry rock that I purchased first to test cycle. I was able to find about 100 pounds of rock that has been dried out and testing that as well.

Here is my thread:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2371891

Dry Reef rock seems to have cycled far faster than I thought I seeded with a rock I had in sump with no corals. Other rock that was dried out seems to not be taking (Note: I washed it first and then I dipped and clean with RO).

I went the route of Dry rock as so far my test seems positive and no need for acid. Also pest free and don't have to worry about toxins. I setup a frag rack and placed all my corals on it this weekend. Next step is to have rock with corals sold and removed then install slowly cycle dry rock. Note: I have 2 liters of Seachem Matrix bio media to handle bio load as well as 40 pounds of rock in sump. I will be parting with %50 rock then wait a week and part the other %50. Once I get the 100 pounds settled I will cycle another 80 pounds and then wait.

Hope this helps.

 

[sirrealism]

Contact zachfishman. He is in charge of a school tank and was looking for palys and xenia. i am going to give him a bunch of zenia soon. He posted about this a couple months ago and I am sure he would take all of them

 

[rfalvey89]

Here is a thought /question: Does just drying the rock out for a week or two work ?
Literally pulling it from the tank and sitting it in the sun for 7-10 days?

 

[smsadmin]

Here is a thought /question: Does just drying the rock out for a week or two work ?
Literally pulling it from the tank and sitting it in the sun for 7-10 days?

I have seen others recommend this process for killing aiptasia so I think it would work. Of course you would lose all of the coralline algae, but it will come back.

 

[installman]

Contact zachfishman. He is in charge of a school tank and was looking for palys and xenia. i am going to give him a bunch of zenia soon. He posted about this a couple months ago and I am sure he would take all of them

I replied on his thread a while back offering to trade for bare rocks.
I sent him a pm earlier today offering to give him some but no reply yet.

 

[rogergolf66]

I have seen others recommend this process for killing aiptasia so I think it would work. Of course you would lose all of the coralline algae, but it will come back.

I have personally seen them survive this. On top of that I used a wire brush to remove the ones that I thought were dead but still had some come back to life. That why I tried boiling a rock ( again I don't recommend that it's very dangerous I did it out side and still dangerous.

Trade the rock in to lfs or sell to newbies that want easy to care for corals.

 

[installman]

Here is a thought /question: Does just drying the rock out for a week or two work ?
Literally pulling it from the tank and sitting it in the sun for 7-10 days?

I have thought about this as well, but it seems that this would also kill everything in the rock and leave me with having to bleach/acid wash it afterwards anyway. Or be introducing a bunch of dead/ decaying stuff back into the tank.

 

[sirrealism]

Hard to believe there is no one with a FOWLR tank that would not want them