Killing off some heliopora coral

[flooddc]

I never thought of ever having to kill coral in my tank but the heliopora got super invasive and starting to take over my tank. I can manually cut off the corals and prevent for spreading to other. However, this one is a bit tricky.
anyone has ideas on how to kill part of the heliopora that spreading into the sunset monti without having to remove the rock and nip them off?

 

 

Edited March 4, 2021 by flooddc
fix photo

[WheresTheReef]

Try cutting the large pieces off. Then you can put a thin epoxy layer over the area and it will die off due to no light. Just put the epoxy on lightly so it blocks the light, but breaks off easily once the coral is dead. Your skimmer might go a little crazy for a bit because of the epoxy. I just tuned mine back a little to compensate. It settled down by the next day or two.

 

I sold off some acro colonies and needed to remove the encrusted sections. I tried removing those encrusted sections using bone cutters in the tank. It was on rocks I could not remove from the tank. I nipped down as close to the rock as I could. I thought I removed all the coral, but man some corals are much more resilient than we think. Nipping the coral off in the tank like I did produced a lot of "dust." It helped to siphon with a hose into a filter sock in the sump. 

[lowsingle]

I had an out of control encrusting montipora that I slowly covered with reef epoxy.  It took a month or so as I did it in pieces.  Lesson learned on my part-no encrusting monti’s on rocks that connect to your reef structure 

 

Darren

 

[flooddc]

Thanks guys!

it’s pretty large 10-12” across just that section. There are ton more in other areas. 
It’s going to be a whole lot of epoxy?.  I’ll try razor blade and scrap some off first and nip out with bone cutter and then epoxy. It’s going to be a pain to get to it as I am right-handed and the darn area only accessible from the left side.

[WheresTheReef]

Sounds like fun haha. Once you cut it you just need something to shade it. I’ve also used small pieces of rock that held securely in place and it worked too.

[flooddc]

[davelin315]

Since it’s living tissue is on the outside you could attempt to simply scrub it with a stiff brush but the little flakes that break off would probably grow elsewhere so perhaps break those off first and then scrub down whatever is left.  I would think (not sure of this) that you would kill it off this way and leave behind the nice blue skeleton for other corals to grow over.  Maybe test this out on a small piece?

[flooddc]

5 hours ago, davelin315 said:

Since it’s living tissue is on the outside you could attempt to simply scrub it with a stiff brush but the little flakes that break off would probably grow elsewhere so perhaps break those off first and then scrub down whatever is left.  I would think (not sure of this) that you would kill it off this way and leave behind the nice blue skeleton for other corals to grow over.  Maybe test this out on a small piece?

Thanks,

I'll give it a try when I get a chance. Spring is around the corner and I have tons of want to do projects. 

[flooddc]

tested out Dave's suggestion last night. Appears to be working. However, might have to do it a few more times to make sue it doesn't grow back. will have to buy a couple of "firm" type toothbrushes.

 

[WheresTheReef]

Cool. Hopefully it works. I have scraped (not brushed) acros down to the skeleton, but left polyps since they were recessed. The corals regrew on multiple occasions. They die when you want them to live, and live when you want them to die. 

[flooddc]

4 hours ago, WheresTheReef said:

“They die when you want them to live, and live when you want them to die.” 

?

[flooddc]

ugh! that didn't work. it recovering and coloring backup. I am going to try scrapping it with a spoon or butter knife to get deeper into the top layer of the coral.

[flooddc]

I took a dinner knife and were able to get quite a bit of the heliopora off near the sunset monti. but my back is killing me . Since the heliopora is soft I was able to pry some off the rock.  While there are areas that won't budge. will mess with it again when I get a chance.