Purple polyps
 

So I found one of the rocks I have is growing a colony of purple polyps some people consider these a nuisance coral others enjoy its appealing looks and searching through this and other sites have not found a satisfactory answer so I have a couple of questions.

1) How fast does it spread?(given the amount of variables involved a round park gestimate will suffice)

2) Is there an effective means of controlling it if it reaches plague proportions?(Biological, chemical)

3) Can it smother or damage other corals?

what kind of polyps?
...if it's purple mushrooms, then it really depends on what you want to have in your tank. If you are looking to go heavy sps, i'd pull the rock out and let it dry out for a week! Mushrooms can kill sps AND they are almost impossible to kill.

This one of the larger colonies on the rock

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...pse8618df0.jpg

I have similar stuff in my tank. I've learned to live with it. If you can get it out, then do it. I find it ugly as hell, impossible to pull off rocks, but can clean it off the sand. It will spread everywhere, tank sides, power heads, rocks and sand. No it doesn't irritate the corals, just ugly.

Attachment 11851
They cover everything
Mine were slow to start, maybe years, then boom. Now they grow overnight.

Purple Cloves. Watch out!

Search here on Canreef to see how to get rid of them.

Searched the site extensively but never found the post I wanted til changed the search parameters to purple cloves

Here is link to that discussion
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...=Purple+cloves

tooth brush

I probably have more blue clove polyps in my tank than anyone around :lol:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7308/9...9f6f1685_o.jpg

Here's my take on them..

I've had them for YEARS and at first I was worried because of all the horror stories that I heard about them stinging and killing off corals. Over time I discovered that this actually isn't true. It may be true for another variety of blue cloves but the ones I happen to have do not seem to sting anything. My blue cloves butt up against corals of all sorts and even cover my clams but neither my clams or corals seem affected.

They do however spread VERY rapidly and can reach plague proportions quickly. If you do not want this then I would take preemptive measures to eradicate them. They are quite easy to smother with epoxy or scrape off with a tooth brush. I find them somewhat delicate this way. It may take a couple of toothbrushing sessions and you'll want to use a HARD toothbrush rather than a soft one or a used one that has gotten soft.

I actually like my blue cloves and let them be. So far I've noticed some of my LPS like calice are able to over run them without any problems. For most SPS it's a bit of a stalemate so to allow sps to encrust into blue clove territory I just clear a path with a toothbrush or epoxy.

You can see another example here of blue cloves touching one of my SPS frags but not causing any harm. No signs of stinging or warfare whatsoever.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3675/9...8d0c813f_o.jpg

In fact, this particular montipora was able to out compete the blue cloves in the far right corner, killed it off and has encrusted over that patch without my intervention.

Rather than wasting your time researching them try to find some fluke tabs. I know exactly where those clove polyps came from. In case you forgot i babysat your rocks for well over a year before they went in your tank. And i never dosed those rocks cause they werent mine and covered in hair algae and hydroids. I see in your pics that they are now growing on your hair algae. You will have to double up on the dosage too before it kills them and you'll lose your shrimp too if you don't take them out. They are not at all like the polyps in Kiens tank, they are extremely evasive and ugly and I just about got to the point of shutting my tank down. If you don't tackle them now you most likely will not be able to keep zoas or most SPS as they get out of control.