Suggestions on how to thin out polyps

[capistranoreefer]

Any ideas on how to thin out these brown polyps (see photo)? From what I remember, I bought these several years ago on some live rock from my lfs. At the time, I thought they looked "cool." Now they seem to be growing all over the place, while they don't cause any problems for the other corals, they are getting out of hand.

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[capistranoreefer]

no suggestions :?:

 

[Anonymous]

do you want to kill 'em or just selectively remove?

i don't know if you can effectively remove any without killing them so i would take care of 'em like aiptasia. shoot 'em with kalk.

i have a patch of them too, mine are contained by the corals around them.

 

[hfmann]

I don't know how to get rid of them, but I do know what NOT to do. My entire reef was overgrown with these and mushrooms. I took about 1/2 the reef apart and pluck what I could off the rocks. Three days after I put the rocks back in, things started to go very wrong. Lots and lots of algae. I never was able to get the algae under control even with massive water changes.

So my suggestion is to go slow in eradicating them.

HTH
Hal
_________________
Danish Forum

 

[GnG]

I'd thin them out, get them started on new rocks and trade them at your LFS for supplies and livestock. If you'd like info on how to frag them, check the GARF website, www.garf.org. I have button polyps and sea mat all over my tank too. We have to thin out our xenias and clove polyps at least once a month. We're going to start doing the same with the button polyps. I think the previous post about algae overgrowing the tank might have had a lot to do with water quality. There could be some residual tissue that might have caused a water quality spike and encouraged the algae. I guess the trick here is to be selective and try to remove as much of the tissue as possible. A scalpel would be good for this.

Good luck,
Gary