Bernardapora people beware and Please help me!!

Waynerock

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Just a PSA that what most vendors are selling as a short tentacle Goni is in fact a Bernardapora. These need to be renamed so people know what they are getting. I had no idea what a Bernard was until Jake put out a video on them last year. I got this one as a “Laffy Taffy Goni” from TSA and if it was a Goni I would have no issues. The problem is it encrusts like a Monty and you can’t remove it off the rock and it stings the literal dog crap out of EVERYTHING. Like Hydnophora level stinging, very strong. I even had my gold torch attack the crap out of it and had the tentacles stuck right to it and it brushed it off like nothing. Anyone have ideas how to stop this menace? I made a kinda shade out of putty to try and shade out the edge but that was poorly implemented. Maybe boiling water squirted syringe on the growth line? Would that kill it? I can’t remove the rock it’s on it’s a main rock and holds everything up. I wish vendors would rename and warn about the stinging potential. My bad I guess I did not do my own research, I just thought short tentacle bright orange Goni cool I want one. And yes it is an amazing color and looks so cool in the rock…till it starts killing stuff

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mav3rick478

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Oh that sucks, i just bought a frag of this too and the LFS also called it mini Gonis. Like you i can't across Jake Adams video and learned what they truly were. Fortunately for me the spot i am putting them on is basically a stand alone rock. I'm guessing your safest bet is to chisel it off. I've seen Fish Of Hex do that with some encrusting corals he wanted to get rid of in his tank. Takes a few tries but eventually he got it all. Good luck.
 

Cell

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Oh wow, it can really look like a goni or a cyphastrea.
 
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Waynerock

Waynerock

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Oh that sucks, i just bought a frag of this too and the LFS also called it mini Gonis. Like you i can't across Jake Adams video and learned what they truly were. Fortunately for me the spot i am putting them on is basically a stand alone rock. I'm guessing your safest bet is to chisel it off. I've seen Fish Of Hex do that with some encrusting corals he wanted to get rid of in his tank. Takes a few tries but eventually he got it all. Good luck.
You can see where how it just gets everywhere. It’s skeleton it so strong I don’t know if I could chisel without hurting the structure. On its own rock it is such a nice coral and the color is awesome and with flow hitting the rock and the tentacles out it really does look like the rock is all flowy. If it was not so stingy I would not care at all but you can see how close it’s getting to the bonsai and other acro
 

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Midrats

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You may just have to ice it like a cake with kalk paste. Cool looking coral though.
 

Cell

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I would slowly start covering it with a thin layer of 2 part epoxy and frag tiles.
 

DeniseAndy

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Wow, too bad. As you stated, it is a beautiful animal.

Sometimes with all these different versions of corals coming in, we are not aware of the growth and aggressiveness of them. Also very hard if they are not labeled correctly. Which, honestly, is easy to get wrong.

Good luck in your battle. No way to find a way to get your structure to stand without the rock?
 
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Waynerock

Waynerock

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This stuff is insane I squirted boiling water out of a syringe on the edge hoping to kill it back a bit and it laughed at me. I mean I really torched the crap out of it and it was back out chillin today. Got some nice frags off the edge for some friends, it starts plating off the side of the rock it’s very cool
 

jamie1210

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wow, first off, thanks for the warning.

the thing with these encrusting corals that become invasive is that it's going to need continuous upkeep, which is a huge pain. I would suck it up, save surrounding corals (as in, pluck them off/frag them off), keep a frag of this crazy bernardie-thing/glue it on a rock of its own, and then just kill the original rock.

I personally HATE "killing back" invasive stuff periodically--reefing is so time consuming as it is without having to worry about this sort of upkeep. So I would resort to this said drastic measure, get it over with, (heck, u might even need to rescape if it's a major large rock) but it'll be worth it in the end! :)
 

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