Did I just kill my GSP?

[djs4him]

So I might have screwed up. You tell me.

Bought a small rock covered in healthy GSP from LFS about a week or so ago.

Placed it in my tiny frag tank where it thrived for a few days. I noticed a few hitchhikers and realized I never dipped it.

This is where I hope I didn't screw up.

I had just a little hydrogen peroxide in a bottle so I decided to try that. I read that GSP handles it really well.

In my laziness, I didn't want to pull the GSP out and dip it separately, so instead I put about 2 teaspoons of hydrogen peroxide into the 2 gallon saltwater frag tank. The GSP didn't immediately react but rather slowly closed over the next hour or so.

I left the peroxide in there for about a day before doing a full water change. Several hitchhikers did indeed die from the treatment. It's been about 3 days now and my GSP is still closed up. Meanwhile, my Duncan is happy and my pulsing xenia is happy.

Is my GSP dead? Anything I can do to encourage it to open? Or just be patient and wait?

 

[doubleshot00]

Be patient. I bet it will come back.

 

[WolvertonReef]

GSP is like bamboo, hard to kill. I've toothbrushed it with peroxide, cut it into slivers, superglued it to stuff, etc... I have yet to have one die. Sometimes it just takes a bit to open back up.

 

[djs4him]

Thanks I'll give it a couple more days and report back here if anything changes!

 

[Thunder_reef]

Some folks would love it if that’s all it took to get rid of it…it’s like the plague…I’ll never have it in a tank again

 

[djs4him]

It's been six days now and just one polyp has opened as of this morning.

I used a turkey baster and blasted quite a bit of detritus off the GSP. I don't know what melting looks like .. but I see some white where there used to be purple. Is that just the Marco Rock beneath the GSP? Or is the purple mat dying?

These photos were taken under white light while trying to hold the phone so .. apologies if they're a little blurry.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

It's been six days now and just one polyp has opened as of this morning.

I used a turkey baster and blasted quite a bit of detritus off the GSP. I don't know what melting looks like .. but I see some white where there used to be purple. Is that just the Marco Rock beneath the GSP? Or is the purple mat dying?

These photos were taken under white light while trying to hold the phone so .. apologies if they're a little blurry.

I left a rock of GSP in a tepid bucket of water a about 4 days. Its still alive. You don't kill GSP, you irritate it, and it sulks then pretends like nothing happened

 

[djs4him]

I left a rock of GSP in a tepid bucket of water a about 4 days. Its still alive. You don't kill GSP, you irritate it, and it sulks then pretends like nothing happened

OK I'll trust you guys that it's fine.. seems to be a unanimous view around here that this stuff is the crabgrass of the marine world. Thank you!!

 

[djs4him]

Alright so .. I'm pretty positive at this point my GSP is actually dying or dead. I did some gentle cleaning with a turkey baster and entire chunks of the purple matting blasted off revealing the white rock beneath. The detritus at the bottom of my frag tank is mostly just purple matting from my GSP. I have just 1 polyp that opens. It's been nearly a week now since I hit it with the peroxide. I've done several water changes now.

Temp is at 78.0F
SG: 1.025
Blue LEDs have now been turned down from 12 hours to 8 hours per day.

Can I save this coral?

 

[radfly]

A friend gave me a little patch of GSP, I tried to get it to grow on the back wall. I had one polyp come out in a few days, but then the whole patch sorta melted. So, it can die, and sounds like yours may as well. Did you hit it with 10% peroxide?
I since got a small frag from my LFS, and it is thriving. On two occasions I took it out and gave it a peroxide brushing with a toothbrush and 3% peroxide to remove hair algae. It pouted for a week and came back just fine. I believe once the mat disengages, then it may be a goner.

Best of luck!

 

[Jekyl]

Every time I see one of these posts I'm hoping someone actually found a way to kill it. GSP never dies.

 

[Goaway]

OK I'll trust you guys that it's fine.. seems to be a unanimous view around here that this stuff is the crabgrass of the marine world. Thank you!!

I find gsp to be the rebelious child. You tell it to stay, it goes. You tell it to grow, it shrinks. You try to kill it, it thrives. You try to grow it, it dies.

 

[Jo P White]

Mine actually died too! Some invasive mushrooms took root on my GSP rock and killed the whole bunch.

 

[djs4him]

A friend gave me a little patch of GSP, I tried to get it to grow on the back wall. I had one polyp come out in a few days, but then the whole patch sorta melted. So, it can die, and sounds like yours may as well. Did you hit it with 10% peroxide?
I since got a small frag from my LFS, and it is thriving. On two occasions I took it out and gave it a peroxide brushing with a toothbrush and 3% peroxide to remove hair algae. It pouted for a week and came back just fine. I believe once the mat disengages, then it may be a goner.

Best of luck!

I believe mine was 5% peroxide. I mean .. if it dies, I won't lose any sleep over it. Just bothers me that I've managed to kill this "indestructible" coral after owning it for .. two days. And it's my first coral at that. Not looking so good for my track record lol.

 

[radfly]

I believe mine was 5% peroxide. I mean .. if it dies, I won't lose any sleep over it. Just bothers me that I've managed to kill this "indestructible" coral after owning it for .. two days. And it's my first coral at that. Not looking so good for my track record lol.

Like the first ding in a new car, you gonna loose some coral during your stay in the hobby. It will get better. Try some pulsing zenia isolated on a rock. They seem bullet proof.

 

[djs4him]

They seem bullet proof.

Challenge accepted.

 

[Uncle99]

I believe mine was 5% peroxide. I mean .. if it dies, I won't lose any sleep over it. Just bothers me that I've managed to kill this "indestructible" coral after owning it for .. two days. And it's my first coral at that. Not looking so good for my track record lol.

Coincidental maybe, but I lost all the GSP shown below after using peroxide for Dino’s.
So somehow, I killed it as well, but nothing else.

 

[djs4him]

So my little pulsing xenia frag in the same frag tank is nearly dead as well. Had a purple algae growing in my tank I'm trying to get under control. Found it growing on the xenia but honestly the xenia had been showing signs many days ago. Now its just droopy, no extension, no open polyps, nothing. I gently hit it with a turkey baster to get the algae off .. pieces of xenia came off as well.

So this just leaves my Duncan (so far doing great) and a mystery frag they threw in for free because he thought it was empty .. I think its a tiny little zoa with two tiny polyps that have opened since being in my frag tank and have some beautiful hints of neon orange.

So .. what gives?

GSP is melting and has one remaining polyp down from over 50. Xenia is almost a goner.

Too much light? Too little light? My water parameters all look great to me .. salinity spot on 1.025 .. pH is a touch over 8 .. temp is at 78F .. alkalinity was around 10 dkh .. phosphate was around 0.1 ppm .. nitrates were a tiny bit high at 10 ppm. I've done water changes with no improvements. Maybe I should stick to fish? So far I kill corals and inverts lol.

 

[helmsreef]

Essentially you overdosed your 2 gallon frag tank with peroxide. It should be 1 ml per 10 gallons. 1 teaspoon is 5ml and you dosed 10ml in 2 gallons of tank water. That is usually with 3% as well. Even with the dissipation rate of peroxide you dosed too much. Might just have to take the L on this one and reset your frag tank

 

[rmorris_14]

So my little pulsing xenia frag in the same frag tank is nearly dead as well. Had a purple algae growing in my tank I'm trying to get under control. Found it growing on the xenia but honestly the xenia had been showing signs many days ago. Now its just droopy, no extension, no open polyps, nothing. I gently hit it with a turkey baster to get the algae off .. pieces of xenia came off as well.

So this just leaves my Duncan (so far doing great) and a mystery frag they threw in for free because he thought it was empty .. I think its a tiny little zoa with two tiny polyps that have opened since being in my frag tank and have some beautiful hints of neon orange.

So .. what gives?

GSP is melting and has one remaining polyp down from over 50. Xenia is almost a goner.

Too much light? Too little light? My water parameters all look great to me .. salinity spot on 1.025 .. pH is a touch over 8 .. temp is at 78F .. alkalinity was around 10 dkh .. phosphate was around 0.1 ppm .. nitrates were a tiny bit high at 10 ppm. I've done water changes with no improvements. Maybe I should stick to fish? So far I kill corals and inverts lol.

Those nitrates are absolutely fine for those corals.I even like mine a little higher. I'm really perplexed by people that manage to kill GSP. I have literally sprayed straight hydrogen peroxide on little tiny pieces of remaining GSP mat and let it sit for five minutes before rinsing it off. The stuff still comes back. The polyps are now a bleach blonde at the moment, but they are still emerging. I agree with @Mibu if you want it to die, it lives. And if you want it to live, it will die.