How to curb Anthelia growth to other rocks?

[MrSpiffy]

So I've gotten some anthelia, and the stuff is really neat. But like others have said, the stuff grows fairly quickly, sprouting new polyps fairly often. It's starting to move up toward another rock, and I really want to curb the growth before it gets out of hand. How do I keep this stuff under control? Does it peel off of the rock? If so, I could peel it off and have it attach to a piece of rubble. Do I have to chip off some rock to get a little frag? What do I have to do?

Thanks!

[reefinmike]

most the time it peels off very well and in large chunks. i let a little go in my sps tank and before i knew it(within 2 weeks) it was a mat the size of my palm and i had to spend about 2 and a half hours peeling every bit of it off with my hands, knife and tweezers... this stuff grows so fast you can almost watch it grow before your eyes. i have had it attach firmly to frag mounts in less than a day. I HATE ANTHELLIA

[cham]

I just had to give away a HUGE colony because its spreading in my tank. I have polyps on the opposite side of my tank in 7 or 8 other places that its never been. Small pieces are detaching and floating to new spots.

It does spread on a mat but mine was holding on tight. Picking at it with tweezers is awful because it STINKS like nothing else.

Now that I have the colony gone, I too need to figure out how to kill all the new little polyps that have found their way into some small cracks and areas that I can't get to.

Be careful with that stuff.

[MrSpiffy]

Well, I don't want to kill the stuff. I just want to make sure it doesn't get out of hand. I also can't pull the rock out with the anthelia on it, so that's going to make it tougher to handle. Would I just peel some of it up and slice it off to make new frags?

[jimwat]

I'm glad to see that I am not the only one who got more than they bargained for.

Even though picking it off of the rocks manually is the only way I know to get rid of it, it is also a really good way to spread it to other parts of your tank if you are not really thorough at getting ALL of what you picked.

Tagging along to see if anyone else has had any luck at getting rid of this stuff...

[jimwat]

Originally posted by MrSpiffy
Well, I don't want to kill the stuff. I just want to make sure it doesn't get out of hand. I also can't pull the rock out with the anthelia on it, so that's going to make it tougher to handle. Would I just peel some of it up and slice it off to make new frags?

How easy it is to peel as a lot to do with the surface of the rock(s) that it is growing on.

[MrSpiffy]

Thanks for the help, guys! Well, I'll give peeling a shot, first, to see if it'll come off. If not, I may have to chip some rock off. We'll see how it goes.

[three-spot]

Position the coral so that it's on it's own rock structure, this way, the only way it'll be able to bother other corals is if it can somehow get across the sand (or tank bottom- in which case you can just scrape it off).

[supervdl]

I started the experiement with Anthelia (Waiving Hand) and it has some room to spread in the corner I put it in. Is it aggressive and attacks other coral or is it more like filling in the bare spots?

[jimwat]

Originally posted by three-spot
Position the coral so that it's on it's own rock structure, this way, the only way it'll be able to bother other corals is if it can somehow get across the sand (or tank bottom- in which case you can just scrape it off).

"IF" in the unlikely event that I were to put Anthelia in another tank, this would be how I would do it.

[cham]

Thats exactly how I did mine. I put in in a corner, by itself on a small rock. As it creeped along the sand trying to get to the main rock formation I could snatch the piece off and toss it.

The problem came when it started sending polyps water born. I have them appearing all over my tank. In small cracks and crevices. These single polyps have quickly turned into 6 headed polyps and the saga continues.

IMHO, keep anthelia out of reef tanks unless you don't mind it dominating your tank.

[jimwat]

Originally posted by supervdl
I started the experiement with Anthelia (Waiving Hand) and it has some room to spread in the corner I put it in. Is it aggressive and attacks other coral or is it more like filling in the bare spots?

I have not noticed my Anthelia "attacking" any other corals (in a chemical warfare sense), but it grows so fast that it easily out competes my other corals for space.

[jimwat]

Originally posted by cham
The problem came when it started sending polyps water born. I have them appearing all over my tank. In small cracks and crevices.

Did the Anthelia do that on its own? Mine did not start sending off polyps until I started trying to remove it. Besides manually pulling it out, I also attempted injecting kalk between the rock and the coral to help get it to detach. This did have some limited success, but caused some of the Anthelia to detach as individual polyps instead of clumps (not good).

Man I wish there was some type of specialized feeder for this coral. I would pay big bucks and then happily ship it off to the next Anthelia victim once it had done its job.

[supervdl]

Aren't some rabbitfish and angels eating these types of softies?

[cham]

Originally posted by jimwat
Did the Anthelia do that on its own? Mine did not start sending off polyps until I started trying to remove it. Besides manually pulling it out, I also attempted injecting kalk between the rock and the coral to help get it to detach. This did have some limited success, but caused some of the Anthelia to detach as individual polyps instead of clumps (not good).

Man I wish there was some type of specialized feeder for this coral. I would pay big bucks and then happily ship it off to the next Anthelia victim once it had done its job.

It did it on its own. I wasn't even trimming it. Just letting it grow and do its thing, all the sudden I started noticing polyps growing all over the place.

[MrSpiffy]

Sounds like this whole thing could get pretty interesting. I was told that GSP grows like weeds, so I put it in the middle of sand so i could frag off pieces and keep it under control. Turns out anthelia is actually spreading faster than my GSP... Oh, boy...

[old salty]

I may move one of my Anthelia covered rocks to the fuge. I figure that if it grows in there, at least it will be filtering the water. I thought I had eradicated it all from my tank and a few months ago, I noticed a polyp. It is now two separate colonies and spreading like wildfire. Same thing with a small Xenia colony.