Nuking Zoas

[zoajohn]

I have a massive zoa colony choking out one of my acros. Has anyone here used kalk paste to kill off some polyps? Any adverse effects to the reef as a whole?

 

[hzheng33]

kalk paste will kill off some of the polyps but expect them to grow back. just turn off the flow to the tank. it may be better to remove the acro tho.

 

[90gDreams]

How big of a colony are we talking about? I'd consider manual removal first. There are some good long steel tongs available, I'd buy those and do that before using Kalk.

 

[zoajohn]

How big of a colony are we talking about? I'd consider manual removal first. There are some good long steel tongs available, I'd buy those and do that before using Kalk.

Easily 100+ polyps. I've tried with some weaker tongs but i've never been able to rip zoas off a rock. Always had to use some sort of blade outside of tank. I could give it a shot with something stronger i guess

 

[90gDreams]

If trying to eliminate the colony as a whole I'd manually pull off everything immediately adjacent to the across then do you best everywhere else manually. Once done get some epoxy and put a sheet of epoxy where the colony was. Similar to how you can smother Aiptasia. Reef epoxy doesn't tend to stick so in a few weeks you can probably peel it off and spot treat any that pop back up.

Alternatively just move the acro sell the colony and rock, pop in a new rock and don't put zoa near it.