Removing unwated corals advice

E

Ezfish

Evening all,

I have come to the decision it is time to clean up my aquarium. It is almost 5 years old and well truth be told I’ve have slacked a bit on upkeep (hangs head in shame). The problem I have is over the years in which I was learning about marine aquariums I took the corals people offered freely to me. Not thinking ahead I put Zoo’s and Star Polyps and random other soft corals in spots now that honestly I don’t want to be growing. Some are even on my base rock. The question I present to you: what do you suggest I do to remove them? Any insight, tips, or methods will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
 
stuff like that which simply grows over the rock, your best bet is simply to get new rock. sell the ones you have with the corals you will probably get a decent deal and then buy new rock with the moeny.
 
Depends if you want to waste the coral you have or not. If you just want to get rid of them, I would do a post in the sale thread, showing the corals etc and have a fragging day.. bring your own tools and take all the corals you can cut in 10 minutes for a flat amount. Or just cut to order and sell as many as you can.

Trading the rock is a good idea too. LFS's might be interested in that or members... bring a LR and exchange for equal or lesser size with coral on it.

If you want to keep the LR you have, you can also look into predatory coral eaters, like butterfly's, angels etc. Put a few in the tank, isolate the ones you want to keep in the sump or a friends tank for a few weeks and let the fish eat them all. I don't know of a fish that will eat GSP though.... Zoanthids are candy to many though and softies as well. Once they have done their work, sell the fish or trade them for corals you do want.
 
If you just want to remove any unwanted corals from the liverock, such as mushrooms and zoos, you could take out pieces of liverock and put it into some ro/di water and let it soak for a week or two. Then riinse it off well and put it back in the tank. You could rotate the rock in and out of the tank until everything you do not want is dead. Being in the the ro/di water for a week would kill off most any life on the rock but would not prevent you from putting it back in the tank and using it again.
 
GREAT ! Thanks all for the quick replies. I have a few plumbing issues I have to tackle first them I am off to clean up my rock.

Thanks,
 
@DaveJ wrote:
Depends if you want to waste the coral you have or not. If you just want to get rid of them said:
Hum i need a zoa eating fish, i have to many acans and other LPS though.
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@Rick wrote:
You could rotate the rock in and out of the tank until everything you do not want is dead. said:
As someone who is struggling to build by first reef, and feeling like I can't afford all the cool frags I keep seeing online, something seems wrong with just killing coral... I guess over time, I'll look at them as grass in the lawn that needs to be cut back, but having someone come and frag the coral off the rock seems like a better idea, no?
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I can see where you say that in the case of corals that can be removed easily, such as sps,or lps and a few others. But what I really referring to was mushrooms, paplys, and sometimes zoos that can really take over rock and can not be removed. In my case I have some green ricordia that is all over he place, stings my sps, is a nuisance and I would certainly nuke if I wanted to start over. In the beginning a lot of people put mushrooms in their tanks, it is an easy coral to come by and take care of. After a year or two of them multiplying and taking over a tank, they often become unwanted and the only way to really eradicate them is remove the rock from the tank.
 
If you want get rid of mushrooms without removing the rock you can mix up some kalk into a thick slurry. use an injector and pump some into the stem. it works for the medium to large mushrooms, turn off the pumps while you do this. I usually do this a day before my water change so I can suck out the dying mushroom.

It may not solve your problem but it should keep the mushrooms in check.
 
Fragging some of what I have is definatly and option and will look into it. But, my main problem is I have some large pieces of base rock supporting my rock structure that the PINK !!! of all corlors star polyps are taking over. Those rocks are my main concern since they are so large.
 
concern getting it out or concern selling/replacing? if its the later then just cut off a few peices and get a chissel, dikes, or a good stiff brush to get the rest off
 
Someone already mentioned, but the most simple way to do it is to mix some kalk with tank water, make it really dense, stop all the pumps, use a test kit syringe with a thin tip and spread it over everything you dont want. A few minutes will kill everything on that spot.
 
You have a 100G tank so I would suggest you start saving your water change water until you have ~50G, also make up 50G of fresh SW. Get a cheap rubbermaid container from the dollar store that hold ~ 20G-30G and fill it halfway with the waterchange water that you have been saving(have a heater to maintain temp) Make sure you have some cured replacement LR pieces, then remove the LR into the container then reaquascape with the new LR/baserock etc. Do a normal water change with some of the new SW you have ready, then make sure you check for ammonia the next few day's in case a mini cycle kicks off. Then trade in the old LR for credit or cook it to remove the unwanted stuff. :D

Cheers,
 
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