Reef nutrition

Removing Brown Palys

mray2660

mray2660

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During the past few weeks our brown palys are taking over so I need to trim them. Suggestions on removing/cutting back Brown Palys. I remember reading somewhere that they can irrate your skin and should wear gloves.

Mike
 
Yeah the brown palys are evil little buggers.

My suggestion, remove the rock they're on, and do external damage (bleach bath, leave it out in the sun, etc) and just call that rock lost. I've kalk'd them before too and while they die back, the mat is still on the rock and that allows them to grow new heads... if you're unwilling to remove the rock(s) with them on, you might just want to call it a loss and continually try to kill them hoping they don't spread any further.
 
Or you can go into the past, and make sure it never happened.

the-terminator.jpg
 
One point of caution. If you do bleach the rock out or do something outside of the tank with said rock, make sure you do it in a well ventilated area. I have heard nasty stories about toxins they can release.
 
I have a enormous colony of huge electric-pastel green palys that are beautiful, yet invasive, but last week a single, small, damaged polyp (I thought it would die) attached to one of my show rocks and within less then a week, the 1 polyp was 7. I took my nail and scraped them off the rock and now everything is fine. No more big palys growing on the right side of the tank... the left side is a whole other story but I like them and I think they are pretty so I let them colonize over there in peace. So to answer your question, IME it is easiest to scrape the off with your nail, and if the rock isn't flat, then yank them off and scrape off the remains. To me it is safer than risking killing nearby corals by 'kalking'. I turn off the pumps when I do this and I have a siphon running right where I am taking out the polyp(s) to remove any unwanted "scraps" or remains of the paly that come off. Since the siphon is running water out of the tank, I just do a water change at that time for the convenience and to dilute and pollutants that weren't removed by the siphon. Again, this is just how I do it, so if anyone sees a way for my method to be improved please LMK so I can improve my skillz. 0:)
 
Matthew, it's a very bad idea to use your nails to scrape palys and/or zoas.

There can be very nasty chemical compounds in those particular corals. Bad enough to make you sick and even kill you.

I think we've told you about this before.
 
Do not, I repeat do not mess with palys with bare skin (yes this includes scraping with your nail) you are only asking for serious problems. Do a wiki on palytoxins or for that matter here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palytoxin
 
Here is another in case you need a second confirmation of how unwise this can be.

http://www.reefcentral.net/forums/showthread.php?t=158730
 
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