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I need to kill my coral

A

anothermineral

Hello Folks,

I have a heavily dominated SPS 210G. At some point in the last several months I must have had a spawning event from one of my pocillopora because they're taking over my tank similar to what you might expect to see with an aiptasia epidemic.

What I need to do is kill off these budding young fast growing corals before they threaten the rest of my SPS they are now growing right next to.

I was thinking about taking a syringe of vinegar and target treating the pocillopora. Do you think it would be strong enough? I used vinegar years ago to to lower PH so I know it can be safely introduced into the tank, however, I also use it to clean all of my pumps, so I know it can take the chrome off a bumper.

Any opinions on how to rid myself of these nuisance pocillopora would be greatly appreciated. Unfortunately, fraging is not a realistic option w/o serious damage to my reef. I estimate 60+ dime sized frags growing all over my live rock. In most cases underneath existing colonies. I'd have to chip them off the LR to remove them and that's just not going to happen. Unfortunately, they have to go.

As an aside, it's pretty ironic when you think of the time, effort, and money we put into our tanks in order to simulate natural conditions and foster this type of reproductive behavior and then when it's achieved, the only alternative (unless you eventually want a one species tank) is to kill them.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
If you frag these at least twice a year (quarterly to be sure) they will not spawn as readily in your tank. You could probably either use kalk paste or vinegar... of course I've never tried!

Chalices, when left untouched for 2 years will reproduce sexually as well. Interesting, huh?
 
J

JerseyWendy

I'm not so sure that Kalk and/or vinegar is going to help much. I had some pocillopora colonies in my tank, and quickly got rid of them (or so I thought), when I saw babies popping up everywhere. After selling all my poci colonies, and after chiseling off the babies, they continued to pop up in other places. I tried Kalk paste and I even tried smothering them in epoxy, but many of them continued to "pop up". When I upgraded to a different tank, I took each and every rock and coral out to inspect them for those pop-up pocis. We were sure we had gotten them all. Here I am, 6 months after the switchover, and guess what's back? Pocillopora. :mad: That is one tough coral.
 
jimroth

jimroth

Man, that is the definition of ironic.

It's a shame there's no "Pocillopora-eating-flatworm or nudibranch" you could introduce, something Pocillopora-specific.

Almost all the lab work done with corals is done with Pocillopora because it's so, um, durable.

So, I'm picturing a kind of home made gadget. It's got a stick long enough to reach anywhere in your tank, like a scraper. On the end is a kind of cup with a tube on the top, like a deep funnel. A hose runs from the spout of the funnel up the stick to a squeeze bulb or a really big syringe. You place the cup over the dime-sized colony and and use the bulb to flood the cup with your chemical of choice, and leave it over the coral for a few minutes. I think vinegar might work, also milky kalk, even hot water. You can certainly pull a couple of volunteers for "tests."
 
M

mkreef

Are you absolutely sure that you can't try to cut them close to the base to possibly to create frags from them, before trying to exterminating them? Good sharp set of dikes. If the pieces don't survive, its no real loss. It just seems a waste. I mean, if your close to south jersey, I'll take the pieces.
 
A

anothermineral

The reason fraging is not possible is because the ones that I really want to remove are in places that are extremely hard to access without possibly damaging other corals.
 
M

mgonz

that's nuts now I am seriously considering removing mine from my system as well. That would be really awesome to encounter but would be terrible to try and get rid of. Please let me know how it goes for you. Thanks.
 
D

ds4x4

just pluck a piece off here and there and toss it or sell it that should keep the spawning cycle dormant.. it will perceive the fragging as a threat and won't reproduce in such an environment most of the time.
 
M

mkreef

Yesterday I went to Doug's (Mr_X from renegadeReefers & RC) last night and he had the exact same issue. The poci's were growing on the glass, in several different places. It was interesting to see. On the glass, from the back side, it looked like large circle of tan coraline, but when you saw the front, you can see the little buds growing out of a carpet of small polyps.
 
M

mgonz

I fragged mine yesterday in hopes to keep it from doing that. Hopefully it'll work, as nice as I think that coral is I would not want it to over take my tank
 
A

anothermineral

In an effort to try to kill two birds with one stone, while performing my quarterly aiptasia removal, I hit the Poci's with some Aiptasia-X. It worked extremely well and there was no adverse impact to the rest of the tank. The little frags are now bleached white and the infestation has ended (for now).
 
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