Tank Upgrade Questions

[cashmoney6980]

Well as time gets closer to upgrading my tank from a 56 gallon FOWLR to a 125 gallon reef tank. I've been purchasing everything I need for the upgrade a little at a time, and today picked up 72 pounds of dry base rock...and has got me thinking of if I want to transfer my live rock to the bigger tank as it is...

I got some rock from one guy locally which has some brown button polyps on them, which at first I thought was really cool, but as of lately those things have spread all over every piece of rock, all over the power heads, inside my Skimmer, and has even worked their way down into my sump, and I've been debating if I really want these pains in my butt in my big tank. I've learned they're poisonus to humans, and can be aggressive to coral, and spread like wildfire!

Another batch of LR I got from another guy I found out too late that they're infested with bristleworms,and even some fireworms (not positive on the fire worms, but I'm pretty sure thats wat they are after a lot of research) and no matter how many I catch, it seems like more just keep popping up and getting bigger...

So my question is, would my best option to get rid of these pests be to just take all my live rocks and dry and clean it to basically make it dry rock? It seems like there's no end to either the polyps or the bristleworms, so to keep them from taking over my 125 gallon, I'm thinking i might just start from scratch. It will hurt to lose all my beautiful coralline growing on all of it, as I've got some pretty reds,pinks, different shades of purple, and even green covering the majority of my rock...but i know that coralline will always find a way back to any tank

I would love to hear any opinions as to how everyone else would go about this problem.
for reading!

 

[carey]

Do you have a picture of these polyps? Do you mean pest anemones, aipastias?

 

[cashmoney6980]

They're definately not aiptasia. That was one thing I've researched and researched and researched to make sure theyre not auptasia. Actually, the reason I even joined up with this site is because my first post was checking to see if they were aiptasia or polyps, and it was confirmed they are polyps. I'll go and try to find the link to that thread I started a while ago, it has pics of them on there. After I acquired these, I was still a noob to the SW world, and was super paranoid they were aiptasia, so I did all I could to make sure they werent

 

[carey]

ok, lol, just checking. Thats usually what spreads so quick but polyps can spread fast too.

If you don't want them in your tank now is the time to get rid of them. Maybe you could frag them off their rocks and give them to your LFS? Hate to have you just kill them if they are indeed coral.

 

[cashmoney6980]

How would I go about fragging up a large piece of LR? Do I just take a hammer and wack it down to small chunks? I know I can get some store credit for some frags. Not much, but better than nothing!

 

[carey]

If they are polyps you should be able to slice them off at where they attach to the rock. The just stick them on a frag disk with a dab of super glue. Not sure how many you are talking about but that's what I would try first.

 

[mr_X]

The reason the tank was infested with bristle worms was because the guy was overfeeding the tank for some time. If you are feeding reasonably, your tank will never get overrun with worms. You'll see less and less of them as time goes by. The worm population will rise and fall with the available food supply.
As for the palys, if they are brown, I see no reason why you would want them. I would just kalk paste them a little at a time just like you would aptasia or majano anemones.

 

[cashmoney6980]

If they are polyps you should be able to slice them off at where they attach to the rock. The just stick them on a frag disk with a dab of super glue. Not sure how many you are talking about but that's what I would try first.

When I say a lot, I mean A LOT! On one power head that I purchased maybe 2-3 months ago, and there's already a good 50 or so on it. These things are spreading like crazy! When i still had canisters running on that tank, when I would clean them weekly there'd be at least a dozen in the floss, and several other dozen on the media baskets. They are cool to watch them eat and stuff, but they're just becoming nothing but a neuisance anymore. The bristle worm population has definately died down, but there's still a number of fireworms thu the tank I see every now and again, and those are the ones I want to eliminate. The small bristle worms I don't mind, as they do more good than harm, I just can't stand the fireworms

 

[mr_X]

fireworms are more rare than people think.
Do they look like this?

 

[mr_X]

Those palys that you are saying are winding up in the filters- they aren't palys. I bet they are majano anemones. Take a pic of them.

 

[cashmoney6980]

fireworms are more rare than people think.
Do they look like this?

DEFINATELY got fireworms. I caught one last night that was about 6 inches in length and a quarter inch wide. Big nasty mamma-jamma!

I started a thread that has several photos of them in it... but i cant for the life of me figure out to post the link to it. I'm on my phone and will take some pics and upload as soon as i get home

 

[mr_X]

common bristle worms get that size also.