what's this fuzzy stuff?

[cath]

Does anyone know what this fuzzy stuff is? Ignore the aiptasia, take a fleeting look at the majano, take a longer look at the xenia frag that looks like it will survive

But take a closer look at the delicate fuzzy little stick-like mass near the majano. I haven't seen it in a long time since the xenia was covering it. The sticks are really stiff and the fuzzies are ever so soft, and you might not even see the fuzzy quality. Thank goodness I can enlarge this pic.

[Rick O]

Looks like hydroids.

[Brooke]

Yep..hydroids. Nasty buggers.

Cath, if I were you, I'd take that rock and bury it in the backyard...very deep, so those creatures can't even get close to your tank! Fortunately, the ones you have with a hard looking stalk do not spread as readily as the more rust-brown ones without the hard stalk. Those spread like the plague. This is just my experience, YMMV.

You can try kalking them, but ours have just come back. Luckily we only have a very small patch or two of this kind. We had the furry hydroid in our old 100g that spread. We had to "kill" the rock to get rid of it.

HTH-
Brooke

[Alice]

Well darn it Cath! I think your tank and my friend Deb's tank are vying for the "most amount of reef pests in a small tank" award. Deb might have you edged out though, she had flatworms too (knock wood!) and the tank is only a 10 gallon.

I concur with Brooke; yank those suckers out of there!

Alice

[cath]

Dagnabbit Thanks for the quick reponse, Rick, Brooke, and Alice.

Hey Brooke- I do know about killing rock (aka LR becomes DR) I've got a kitty litter container in my back yard with lots of DR in it. It's left over from last summer. Mebbe I should get the HAZMAT team over to bury it [i]deep in that landfill on TDWYATT's side of town.

Geeze, that is on a major piece of rock. As a matter of facet, that's the rock that's the home of the twin leathers that Tom gave me Sigh...but there's a nasty crowding of majano at the base of the leathers.

You're right, Alice. My tank being a collection of tank nightmares. For 2¢ I'd tear it down and start all over. But maybe it would work to go after one thing at at time.

[Mr. Ono]

Cath, if you got a hammer and an old slot head screwdriver, then you can chip of the "bad" section of the rock. You can "cut the finger off to save the arm."

[cath]

Thanks for the suggestion, Mr. Ono.
Looking at that piece of LR, it's covered with the scourge of majano, which is already pretty invasive in my tank.

I think I can use the technique you suggested for saving the leathers though

Brooke- what's YMMV?

[Rick O]

Considering the pests you have then starting over isn't such a bad idea. If you yanked every rock that had a reef pest on it how much would you have left? I have several pieces of good base rock that you can have. It would eventually become LR sans pests.

[cath]

Originally posted by Rick O
Considering the pests you have then starting over isn't such a bad idea. If you yanked every rock that had a reef pest on it how much would you have left? I have several pieces of good base rock that you can have. It would eventually become LR sans pests.

That's a pretty fair question, Rick. Looking at my tank, if I were to take out every rock with a pest, I'd have maybe one good piece, and that's the one with the agressive hairy shroom on it. That shroom, btw, even won out over majano some time ago. But on all those pieces of rock that have pests, there are also healthy and happy others residing there.

Lemme think....sooo...how do I save the good guys? Slice them off the rock and put them in a safe place til I can get the rest cleaned up? This would be m opportunity to make a DSB, since I didn't start out with that.

[OodleyBoodely]

Bad luck, Cath! Yeah, I think if you just cut the leathers off close to the base, you shouldn't have any problem with getting them to reattach to other rock. GL

[cath]

OK, advice here, please.

The twin leathers that Tom Wyatt gave me are attached with epoxy. And one of them has a confouded majano (small, tho) at the base of it. How should I procede with this?

Take out the piece of LR, [i] carefully cut the leathers away with a flat head screw driver or would a single edged razor blade work? Will the leathers be totally offended being out of water? Then I need to zap the majano with kalk? The leathers are otherwise very happy campers.

[Rick O]

You don't need to remove the coral to inject the majano. But if you're wanting to remove the coral anyway then just pry the epoxy off of the rock with the coral still attached to the epoxy. Leathers are tough and it's hard to hurt them but cutting it off the rocks means you will have to re-attach it to another as you would when fragging a coral (rubber band, bridal veil, toothpick).

[Sand Reef]

Just wonderful . That is exactly what I was wondering was in my tank all this time. I have the rust colored ones and yes they are spreading all over the live rock. Guess I just found some new lawn decorations.

[cath]

so I took the rock out, and here's what it looks like in sunlight. I really liked this piece...all nice and gnarly.

[cath]

and from another angle