Purple Clove polyp battle - ripping out and adding new rock?

[ID-Reefer]

250 gal. mixed reef. up for a little over 2 years. Everything is going great except for this dang purple clove polyp that somehow came in on a frag a year or so ago. I let it go to far and now Ive got an issue as its spreading obviously and I imagine in another year half my tank will be covered. I have three separate sections of rock work in my tank and its only on a portion of the left most section of rock work - so far. I hate to tear apart anything in this tank but don't know what else to do.

Unfortunately my rock work is composed of several pieces cemented together with arches coming off of those so removing is difficult but im left with no other option that I know of. My plan is to remove the entire left section of rock and salvage the coral colonies that I can. Some of the rock arches on the opposite side don't have any clove polyp yet so those rock arches can be reattached to whatever I put back in.

My questions... all my rock was originally the Carib-sea life rock. It was all built and cemented dry then added to the tank before initial cycle. Ive bought a large massive arched piece and a couple other pieces to replace the structure Im taking out. This stuff is supposed to have bacteria already on it - activated when it gets wet. Question - can I remove a portion of existing rock work and then add in a similar amount of "life rock" without cycling the rock? Has anyone else added new life rock to an existing system? I don't want to crash my system. Any help would be appreciated.

In the photo below ive circled the portion of rock work Ill be removing. Oh and also attaching a photo of the nasty clove polyp.

 

[blaxsun]

The short answer is yes - you can add new rock anytime (dry, live, liferock, etc.) As long as you're not replacing all the rock the new rock should "colonize" in short order. I removed a barnacle cluster to kill some pesky pulsing xenia I couldn't get deep inside - left it out for 2 days to dry then reintroduced it back into the tank). That was about 2 weeks ago - now it's all covered in diatoms and coralline is starting to grow all over it.

 

[scchase]

Just get some deworming fish food with Fenbendazol and your problem will be solved in a few weeks.

 

[MoshJosh]

I had a halloween hermit eat a frag of blue clove. . .

 

[Cristy17]

I had a halloween hermit eat a frag of blue clove. . .

This is interesting..has he eaten any more? Don't they eat corals anyways?

 

[MoshJosh]

This is interesting..has he eaten any more? Don't they eat corals anyways?

No. . . He died a while back. It was sold to me as “reef safe” but honestly I don’t know for sure.

Thinking back, there was some algae on the frag, maybe he was snacking on that and the cloves were just in the line of fire.

I no longer have halloweens, and cloves still don’t grow. . . I see a poly every now and then but never takes off.