killing coral (on purpose)
 

the box of Walt Smith live rock that I got to 'seed' my tank after my marco rock had cycled never spent any time in a store, I literally got the unopened box directly from the airport. As such, a whole lot of stuff survived on that rock that I've never seen on live rock in the LFS. Namely, there's one species of what I'm positive is montipora that I initially started out thinking 'OH SWEET!' about, but now...

This stuff is both encrusting, and produces branch-like nodules. However, it also grows really fast. At this point, it's now covering a solid 1/3 of the usable surface of some of my best pieces of rock. I'm about 99% certain that this is the same species of coral that actually built the rocks that are now in my tank. It's a tan/pink/light brown colour, so while it's not ugly, it's not something that I probably ever would have purchased on purpose in a store. I have WAY nicer corals that I would rather be occupying the rock space this stuff is taking up. Unfortunately, I can't break it off the rock, because, well, it is the rock. I don't want to get rid of it completely, but I need a way to kill it back a bit. Will a close-up shot of hydrogen peroxide do it? Does anyone have any other methods for selectively killing an encrusting coral?

I smother encrusting porites and GSP with epoxy :-)

A couple years ago I would have just put it in my tank and it would be dead in no time lol

Sounds like the m. Confusa I had. I scoured it with a blade till there was nothing left and it survived lol. Telling you this might save you the hassle of trying this. Go with the epoxy smother.

Kalk paste, just smear in on and voila! It works for aptasia as well.

What kind of epoxy?

Boiling water is least likely to affect the rest of your tank.

Has your tank cycled yet? If not, the cycle of such "fresh" rock will kill it off.

Oh yah, the tank is a year old. About 70% of it died during the cycle, but there were enough surviving patches close enough together that in the past year it's just filled back in over-top of the dead stuff, there's more of this coral than anything else in my tank now. I'll probably try the kalk paste first, I hate the look of epoxy and this stuff grows over the epoxy I use to cement my other corals faster than the corals I'm trying to epoxy in to place!

Is there anything else in the tank that you want to survive? You can boost your Ca up to about 650 for 24-48 hrs and it should kill most or all of your coral off. Leave it for 72 hrs and it should kill it all off. If you're not so keen on this the kalk paste works wonders, I use it to kill off coral spawn in my DT from one of my birds nests that spawns regularly. If you have large areas the kalk paste might take forever as u can only dose a bit at a time. Perhaps take a few pieces of pantyhose and wrapping it around the coral spots to block both light and flow for a few days... there must be something better than pantyhose though, anyone have ideas?


Dan