How to "trim back" xenia & athelia

[Tropicr]

I have a pulsating xenia and an athelia (not sure if I spelled it correctly) that are beginning to spread too much. They are "encrusting" on rock. My question is; how do I remove them from areas where I don't want them and can I somehow cut them and give them to someone or will I kill them by removing them?
Thanks for any info.

[JoeMack]

You can cut/rip what you want to remove. Use a razor blade or sissors. You can also scrape them off of their rock and try and not leave anyting behind. You may need to use some crazy glue so that the parts left behind dont start a new colony. GL!

[73ChargerFan]

I peel them off with my thumb nail. But Joe is right, if they are thriving in your tank, they can be impossible to get rid of without changing the conditions in the tank. Any piece left on the rock could grow into a new colony.

[jimsar]

Here's a trick that I've used. Due to a couple of factors (deep tank and short arms) there are areas that I can't reach with my bare hands. So what I do is lean a flat piece of oystercrete (homemade) rock against the xenia or on top of the anthelia, and they'll migrate into the rock. Unfortunately, this doesn't clean them out completely, but at least I can take some out.

Haven't found the tool to scrape them off cleanly. Otherwise, they'll just float around in small pieces and start new colonies.

Jim

[RonSF]

My gameplan:
Xenia- pull off by hand (usually get it all) take to TP or frag swap. I will try to keep it on an isolated rock in my new tank.
Anthelia- take entire rock to TP for credit. It just isn't worth the effort to try to get rid of this stuff for me. I can never totally get rid of it, so no anthelia in the new tank, period. It's second on the no fly list after GSPs.
-Ron

[Markarian421]

I've just started to run into this problem, I want to confine them to just one rock. Sometimes I can just pull them off, but it depends on the rock they are on. If they are large it seems to work to cut them off with a razor blade and then attach them to a new rock with a rubber band, they heal in a few days. The stumps take a little longer to heal, but they don't die -- I think probably I can at least control them this way. I've also gotten them to climb onto small rocks a couple times as Jim suggests, but where most of mine are that isn't usually possible.

I've been taking them to various LFS, considering how many I have I'm amazed when they give me anything for them!

-- Brian

[sfsuphysics]

Reminds me of the joke of the old man talking to his grandson while working in the garden. "Grandpa how do you tell the difference between weeds and flowers?" "Well, if you don't water it, put poison on it, pull it out of the ground, and it still grows back its a weed, and if you water it, put fertilizer, take care of it, and it dies then its a flower"

*blows a poofy dandilion over everyone's tank*

[Lessa]

I just discovered that much of my pulsing xenia seems to have dislodged itself from the rock and is growing on top of the calurpa (weed, not flower) instead! Makes it easy to harvest the excess xenia along with the algae.