Blue cloves....look nice but.....

[miserkris]

Can blue clove polyps take over a 75g?
I had a small frag now seems it is sending polyps in current, now they r growing in opposite ends of dt....

But I love the blue color though.do ikeep it or toss it?

(I have a mixed reef.....with some fish.)

Pls advice....thx

[cromedogg33]

Good luck at this point. Best advice is I hope you really really like it, if you don't......boil your rock.

[ir_danno22]

you can run some fresh water for a few seconds over them. it kills a quite a few of them and tones them down for a while.

[TRENT_G]

check this out. People that see my tank think its cool. Not so sure I see it. But their here to stay. Good luck getting rid of them.

[MabuyaQ]

They may even be reproducing sexually when they start appearing at the other end of the aquarium. They do so in mine, every (other) month they get pinkish colored eggs that are released in the water column.

I have them growing all over the live rock as well, but can't be bothered as they don't have any stinging powers. All other corals (mainly sps and lps) I have will kill them once they touch so the other corals simply create their own growing space if necessary. They also have an advantage as well as they are great in polishing your water, I always have zero nitrate and phosphate. Personally I also prefer the color of these than that of bare live rock.

A paste of calcium-hydroxide will kill them permanently if you want to get rid of them.

[Daleo]

Blue cloves a beautiful just like GSP but will grow over and suffocate other coral unless the other coral can defend itself (sweeper/chemical warfare). Best bet is to boil the rock you don't want blue cloves on and tone down the colony. If you periodically frag the blue cloves, they tend not to go sexual in your tank.

[miserkris]

Thanks all, great pics.

If other corals can sting blue cloves, I'm ok with the spreading....

Anyone have experience of this stinging other softies or zoa etc? Can this clove *smother* other corals or damage or grow over them?

Pls share, thanks all!

[baja_driver]

I think it would be really nice to have your rock covered in them.

[droth335]

They are pretty harmless IME. They do spawn and spread like wildfire but we have sold an awful lot of them to people who have seen our tank and really like the look. Trent G - looks very similar to how established they are in our tank.

Here is a FTS:



And a picture of them spawning recently in our tank:

[CDone]

I just replied to this post http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2117962 with what I used, worked on my anthelia as well as my cloves.

Colin

[Tahoe Reefer]

I've got these things in my tanks as well and love them. They were the last coral I put in and have really filled in the blanks. None of my LPS have any trouble with them, a few zoas are competting for space but I don't care who wins so, no problem there for me.

[LittleFish2012]

They are good filler corals just like zoas. Harmless IMO.

[redfishsc]

I'd love for them to overtake my tank like that. Most of our corals are too tall (or too strong of a sting) to be overrun by this blue clove/anthelia.

Other than their fast rate of growth, mine are definitely a passive coral. They don't seem to hurt anything.

[rhdoug]

THIS is the info I have been looking for, thanks everyone for their experience. If anyone wants to sell or trade for some, or know who has them please PM me. I am thinking of adding some for the blank spaces in my reef.

[Radioheadx14]

Can't wait for mine to start spreading

[Radioheadx14]

question, does any one have experience with these and shrooms or ricordea? I just bought 14 ricordea polyps, and want to keep them and the blue cloves together. anyone know if the can over grow ricordea?

[ddmiller38]

Never heard of them growing over, just around the coral

[AcroporAddict]

Blue Clove polyps are a plague on a tank. They grow around acropora bases, preventing them from encrusting, and they crowd out zoas competing for light. They also secrete a ton of chemicals into the water, and in all of the above photos they are easily the singular dominant form of life in the tank.

They don't seem as much of an issue in euphyllia dominant tanks where the corals can sting them, but in an SPS dominant tank they are terrible.

I treated my 300 with Fluke tabs and completely destroyed them. Here are some before/after pics. Best thing I could have done for my tank. My average ORP jumped by 100mV after I got rid of the blue clove Poyps. That shows just how much organic secretions they were putting in the water. I got rid of 4-5 square feet of them. In a tanks like the above, only a complete teardown will get rid of them, besides a fluke tab treatment like I did.

Link for a thread that talks about treatment more in depth:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...ght=fluke+tabs

[Cptn Spaulding]

I bought a palythoa grandis frag once with some blue cloves on it. Knowing it would compete for space with my zoas, I thought long and hard about what to do to get rid of them before that happened. Then it hit me: bury it in the sand! After 36-48 hours in the sand, there were no more. Food for thought, I suppose.

[frugalreefer]

My rock is completely covered with the blue cloves and I love the look. My sps don't have a problem encrusting onto the rock with the cloves surrounding it. I actually just glue SPS frags on top of the cloves and when it starts encrusting it pushes them away.

They do however find their way in between zoas and will compete for space, but I found that if the zoas are happy can tighten up their colony and push out the cloves. Another observation is that snails will not(or hardly ever) crawl over the stuff, so with my rock being completely covered my snails are only on the glass 98% of the time.

Cloves will also keep nuisance algae from growing wherever its covered.

[wireefman]

they make a wonderful filler, however they are very hard to control and will never have a home in my tanks... they are a beautiful addition however

[ddmiller38]

Mine are on a small rock the size of a half baseball and haven't moved or spread as of yet but I have been keeping an eye on them.

[SushiGirl]

I want some of these so bad...perfect for my softie/LPS tank.

[chrismnash]

How you get the blue clove polyp they got to be cheap I just can't find them near me.

[cloak]

I would avoid these things like the plague. They are quite beautiful, don't get me wrong, but sooner or later they'll be popping up EVERYWHERE...

Green star polyps grow from that mat, which can be easily manipulated. Whereas these things just ride the current and start growing wherever they land.