Green Star Polyps

[dksisk]

I have a small rock with Green Star Polyps on it however it looks like there is some sort of algea growing on it also. Can someone tell me how to remove this without hurting the polyps?

[tendar]

Just try picking it off. It kind of depend on what kind of algea it is though on best way to remove it.

[dksisk]

What would you suggest that I pick it off with? It is sort of a wooly looking algea. I have placed it in front of a power head hoping that it would blow it off but no luck.

[Katspaw]

Long reply Sorry!
This summer has been a very difficult one for me, I had to fly home to Texas as my Father was dieing. I had tank sitters while I was done. Just before I flew home, I had a mini crash and last four fish ( all algae eaters). I did not replace them as I didn't want to stress the tank to soon. The sitters fed the Tank as if I had all the fish still in the system, thus causing an Algae bloom. To top all of this off, the algae got so bad that it blocked flow to the sump where the protein skimmer is. Without maintaining the proper level of water in the sump the protein skimmer shut down. So the Algae really got out of hand. I was gone for 6 weeks. I walked into my shop were the tank is housed and wnted to turn around and fly back to Texas. I don't even know how many corals were bleached in the system. I tryed everything that I could think of to rid the tank of algae, but there wasn't anything that was working. So I contacted my Reef Club members and gave what surviving corals over to 6 of them. Then I proceeded to take each piece of rock out of the system and scrub the algae off. ( yes it was that bad). Anyway, getting to the point of posting all of this here, A number of stars, zoos, and mushrooms stayed in the tank. They had jumped to rocks way to large to remove from the system. Being that I had others in safe hands, I scrubbed the ones left in the tank also. Not one of the corals died off from the rough abuse I put them through. I noticed that the star type polyps would retract into their purple encrusting shell when removed from the water. I am not telling you to scrub them as I had to, but once you remove the rock from the water, then it will be easy to get to the algae and remove it from the polyp area more easily.

Tracey