Growing Green star polyp

hopperjl16 · Mar 29, 2016

I know most people are probably laughing since this is considered a "weed" by many, but I'm trying to get my GSP to take over the back wall of my tank. I have a Biocube, so the wall is plastic. I took a piece of the mat I already had on a rock and glued it to the wall about 2 months ago. It started with 4 polyps and now has like 14, but the mat itself isn't really any bigger. Will the mat grow over plastic? I've seen pics of it growing on glass, but never plastic. If there's algae around it will it grow? I try to keep the algae off the wall around it but it doesn't clean off as well as it does from glass. Any other tricks?

TheEngineer · Mar 29, 2016

It should grow just fine on plastic. Sounds like it is growing for you. On the back wall it probably doesn't get a ton of light. That might give you slower growth.

Salt Creep · Mar 29, 2016

Starting with that small of a piece that sounds about right for growth. The bigger it gets, the faster it will grow.

hopperjl16 · Mar 29, 2016

icecool2 said:
It should grow just fine on plastic. Sounds like it is growing for you. On the back wall it probably doesn't get a ton of light. That might give you slower growth.

Good point, it def doesn't get ideal light on the back wall. Thanks!

Tahoe61 · Mar 29, 2016

GSP grew just as readily over my plastic over flows. Mod flow and lighting, do not allow detritus to accumulate on mat. There were a number of times when my GSP would stay closed for sometime, unfortunately the coral always opened again. The images show GSP growing on the plastic backing to a JBJ.