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Trimming back my oversized zoa colony


Trailermann

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this zoa colony is overwhelming the adjacent blastomussa.  They both are on a large live rock that cannot be removed from the tank.  Can I cut each zoanthid off where the base meets the rock?  If I do, can I just let the small polyps float away, die and degrade?  Or, with all the current pumps off, should I suction each polyp up and discard?  Is this species valuable and worth saving somehow?  Am I right that this colony is a large zoa and not a paly?

for trimmingIMG_20180205_151552225.jpg

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If you take the mat off with it you can glue to a frag plug or disk and sell them.  Make sure to wear gloves and safety glasses as poly toxins can be very bad for us.  Don' get it in the eye or wounds.  I would be interested  in a frag of them if you do it.  Google polytoxin it explains better than I.😃

Edited by lewisriverfisherman
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AOGs can really grow (Armor of God).  Allot of people will put them on their own rock for the same reason you are fighting it, they are hard to stop once they get going.

I bought my first one for 30 bucks for a single polyp at Seahorse!  These days you could probably sell that entire colony for that if lucky..  Because they are such good growers they tend to go for a very reasonable price these days.

You can actually kill some off with Aptasia X to slow the spread.  It might get on your blasto though, maybe not a good idea.

Another thing you can do is to cut the rock out from under them.  Use bone cutters to cut the rock directly in the tank.  Cut under the mat like @lewisriverfisherman suggests.  It is slow going, but try to get the entire mat off with some of the live rock attached.  From that point it is super easy to frag and glue onto frag plugs.  Trade with others, share the love, bring em into your favorite reef store for store credit.

If you put any back, just place it on it's own piece of rock lest history repeats!

You can also just cut the heads off in the tank.  That will release quite a bit of palytoxin I am guessing, never tried it but heard people caution about it.  If the mat remains they will probably spread back pretty quick.  For that reason I am thinking cutting the mat out is a messy hard job but will get the results you are after.

Best of luck and of course watch out for that good old palytoxin.

 

 

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