Lots of pics of my lost battle :(

[Angela Short]

Just a few pics of things to NEVER add to your tank thinking you can controll them. I purposley added 2 tiny tulip anemonies to my tank thinking they wouldn't get out of hand and they are so pretty.... Well, they have pretty much wipped out my tank along with brown zoas/button polyps. Granted since the 3rd child came along the tank has suffered but the invasive things have taken over the past year to the point I am just gonna start over from scratch with the new tank I am planning when we move. This first pic is where I pursosly put 2 tulip anemonies thinking it would take "forever" to get to be too mant then I would just trim em back....Wrong!!





And they are instoppable! They float off and grow on the sand, glass, anywhere just name it!!



And this pic shows the tulip anemonies and the other horriable monster the brown polyps taking over a nice area that "did" have pretty zoas all over the rockwork.



More on the brown zoas....

[ocd_mariner]

Yikes!

I had a horrible case of the brown zoas. When I added my regal angel last year, he gobbled 95% of them up. Crisis averted.

[dzones]

that is just brutal

[Mikeyjer]

I wanted Tulip Anemones before, not after seeing your tank Angela!!! I had some along with Majano and Aiptasia. Put some Peppermints in there, nothing left after awhile......They started going after Aiptasia first, then Majano, then Tulip....All Gonners!!!!

[Angela Short]

I had 2 small patches of ugly brown zoas I started with when I first started reefing and I am ashamed to say I actually sold some at my first swap telling another newbi just how "easy" they were to keep! ( sorry Wayne ) Hope they are not still plauging you I tried scrapping them off with a exacto knife and you guessed it.... every single smidgen of zoa that floated away came back to fight another day! They lost the battle that day and I thought victory was mine.... Till they then popped up all over the tank....

Just a few nice patches of brown polyps if you please....


Notice the frag disk right at the base of the brown polyps that HAD some really pretty zoas at one time on them...





They even popped up in the sand from nowhere!





A few other things to be wary of are Yellow star polyps. But notice how the tulips and a aptasia or 2 have nestled right in the yellow stars, Also another coral I wish I had not added.



Ahh yes, I can not forget the ugly plain ol mushroom I worked so hard to propagate and multiply way back in the days before I knew they would come back to smother out all my nice pretty things. I am ashamed to even list what all thease things have smoothered. But one day I will be needing a new Mike Palleta blue from ya Fishdoc They just grew over things so fast it would make your head spin! They are working on my pretty zoas as I type...

[GraviT]

I've had those lurking in my tank since I got some LR from a local hobbyist that had a few hiding in the shadows. I break out the Joe's Juice when they start popping up again.

I'm battling dinoflagellates..talk about a never ending war.

[Angela Short]

And a nice pic of a monster aptasia just stinging the poop out of a zoa frag...

[Angela Short]

The one with the huge app is red people eaters and the one right under it getting tagged are purple hart envys I really need to get off my tail and go try to salvage some things .

[Angela Short]

I am telling ya, NEVER put the tulip anemonies in!! They are pretty but they will wipe out anything in there path with a very nasty sting! I have tons of white skeletons as proof. Granted my tank has been low on my priority list this past year but sheez... If only the cool things grew that fast I would be a rich gal!!

I also have some xenia and wave/clove type polyps (anthilia?) that came back from nowhere I didn't picture. I literally took my reef apart and traded away all the rock with any of that stuff on it and after about a year it somehow has came back from the dead. I bet when I do tear the rock out it is full of crazy stuff growing up through the rocks like that!


I was so anxiouse to have life in the tank I would let anything that grew live but I am talking from experience if you think its bad you better kill it (talking mainly about different anemonies)

I also for some reason can not keep pepermint shrimp. I have a few wrasses I think just make them snacks because I have put in about 30 to no avail. I put in 16 at one time and saw no change. And joes juice didn't seem to work. They would melt off in a few hours only to come back within a week or 2. I am at such a point now joes juice would be a waste
of time and money. I need a good copper banded butterfly but my mean ol Powder blue would kill him. He has already killed 2.

I am just gonna move what I can and want to take to the new tank to a 55 and just let them do whatever I guess unless anyone has a great idea to rid the tank of massive numbers of Tulip anemonies...

[NeveSSL]

Wow... I'm glad you posted! I have a TON of those palys... I will definitely be ridding my tank of them when I redo my plumbing in a week or two...

Thats crazy!

Brandon

[tigerarmy40]

take all that rock and cook it, either that or dry it out and save as many corals as you can

[Angela Short]

I will definetly cook it if I reuse it in the new tank. I really want to start from scratch with tonga branch. It would be great rock for a Fish only and may even be a good snack for some fish. We are putting the house on the market in Feb. so cooking stinky rock or undertaking a huge tank revamp is out of the question for now. The tank will just have to survive for a few more months. I did set up a 55 I plan on moving my nice remaining zoas and things in immediate danger of getting stung or smothered over to tommorow I hope if the levels are fine. What a pain this thing is turning into though.

[Angela Short]

One last pic before I go off to bed... My maroon lady posed for the camera

[Angela Short]

OK One more that shows a nice mix of devistation and one small patch of pretty zoas hanging in there. See the cute little fishy peeking out at you?

[Lint_Licker]

thats a good excuse to get a regal angel and a copperband butterfly.

[bkv1997]

I' ve seen someone use a raccon butterfly, less picky than the copperband, to kill them in a tank i'd never thought they would get rid of them all and they were gone in two weeks.

Just a thought.

[gflat65]

Wow, Angela. I started the devestation... I am sorry to see that they multiplied like that one you. I must have something eating them... I know the Pepermints took them out when I moved, though (no other food source and added several peppermints). Jenn's tank has a number of them, though. I plan to nuke them all with kalk paste (much smaller tank than yours). Sorry Angela...

[chadfarmer]

how about a kliens butterfly

[eyebedam]

angela that sux. I got some of those same tulips from Gary also and they took off like that in my nano. Everytime I joes juiced them it seem liked they came back twice as bad. I also didn't have any luck with the peppermints. If you decide to try some butterflies and your powder blue goes insane on them I could keep him in the 180 for you for awhile. I hope it gets better for you.

[Pickupman66]

Angela,

I know it is a bit late for htis, but here is a recepie a very trusted friend of mine uses for control of anyting. gps, xenia, apistasia. basucally anything it touches is gonner. I will be using it on gps and my xenia. I have some of those tulips but they havent done near what yours have.

This ain't a juice its a paste, but here is how to make it and I'm giving away and it was around here long before tom dick ot harry jo. reason I ever charged for it at all was to cover the postage and stuff in it this will make about 4 oz/s weight not volume.
I take a ½ to 2/3 cup of pickling lime or kalkwasser mix the dry type. The pickling lime does better and add a few spoons of R/O or distilled water and stir these to look a bit like a thick pancake batter almost and then stir in a tip of a tea spoon of ground say a 1/8 tsp. of black pepper and cayenne and a couple of drops of Texas Pete hot sauce and stir and mix well.
Then put this on a microwave safe plate or saucer spread it out level over plate and put in microwave and then heat this mix on high for
about 45-60 seconds or till it just starts to bubble abit let it bubble for about 10 seconds. It then will be about like
tooth paste when removed and very hot.. It can also be done in a oven or a toaster oven what I used before microwaves where
around.
Then stir it again then let it cool should then look like a thicker mud almost like sheetrock mud and smell like pepper.
Then let it set and cool and put in a capped bottle. Then using a syringe from
An aquarium test kit remove the plunger fill syringe with the cooled mix with a spoon handle screwdriver and drop a dab in to each pest. No need to remove or clean or worry they will turn black swell up and melt in just a few minutes.
This is totally reef safe and used and tested for many years. Now if the mix is to thick to push through
Syringe like a caulk gun when it’s cooled, then add a few drops of R/O or distilled water to thin it a bit, But it has to have mud type concinnity to drop in to their mouths like real thick toothpaste. “TOTALLY REEF SAFE” and no Clean up needed and the excess if any will dissolve and add buffer to the water. Just let it lay there. Tangster stuff. Enjoy never eat it won't hurt you but taste like sh*t as crocodile Dundee would say (: "

[Angela Short]

If I nuked them all it would probably crash the tank I will print the recipe though for future use!! But it actually did have a small crash not related to the anemonies stings a few months ago either from overdoseing ozone, dropping P04 to fast with remover ( I knew better) or many other factors. The main thing is the tank is in the basement and totally out of mind out of sight since we never go down there. Build a huge den and playroom only to never use it.... go figure!

Gary totally not your fault! I knew they had potential of getting wild and added them anyways I have no idea what I was thinking but I added them before I realized how little attention my tank would get downstairs. Its totally my fault for not getting them under controll when they were just 50 not 50 million .

Thanks for the offer of housing the powder blue Jason. I am real torn about just getting rid of him all together but he is so pretty! Just so darn mean to new guys. I actually have a freind who is selling his powder blue. He moved to west Tn and is having a neighbor feeding his 80 gallon bowfront every other day if you are interested in him LMK. ( Tank will be for sell soon also)

I think I will actually put a butterfly in to see if it will eat them. I just need to get the powder blue in my 55 till I decide his ultimate fate.