Removing an abundance of bubbletips
 

Ive had the little buggers for years. They always split when they were the size of a toonie or so, now in this latest itteration of my tank they seem happy, many are hitting 4 or 5 inches. I have culled them in the past chipping off easy to get to ones and selling them cheap to locals, kind of sick of that effort though.

I have in the past cleaned some by spraying hydrogen peroxide on them and picking at them till they fall off, but that does not work as well on the bigger ones.

Thinking of tying in a tank temporarily and putting my cleaned rock in there but how to get them uninfested.

I am on a pretty tight budget right now too otherwise i would just cycle some fresh dry rock.

Aptasia zapper perhaps? Are those still a thing?

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Strange dilemna.

Interesting that they have gotten larger in a different set up.
I had thought they were a different strain of colonials that were small due to genetics.

Unfortunately i have no suggestions for you... cant really think of a safe way to eradicate them aside from manual removal, as you have been doing.

New rock. Thats all.

Manual removal is probably the only way to get rid of all of them and for the little ones just use a syringe and kalk paste to inject into the center to kill them. Probably the cheapest way.

hobby has come a long way since now treating bubbletips as pests.

If rock that they are on is easy to take out of the tank, you can most likely trade it in to place like J&L for fresh rock. I am sure they wouldnt mind trading you straight up.

any natural predators that might be in someones FO setups?

and thanks for you suggestions everyone.

last reply, honest. i think they are getting bigger and happier as i have finaly got this tank stabalized, the last tank was smaller and had lots of changes regularly so if they not happy they move and split all the time. now some of them have their happy place and they can grow the way they want.

There may be some, but issue is that those predators wont eat BTAs only. They will munch on other corals as well. And I just noticed that you are not in BC so you probably dont know what J&L is that I posted above. Basically, go into your LFS and see if they would want to trade you. I cant see any of them saying no to a straight up trade, as they would be getting coral that they can sell for more money than just rock. Maybe even see if you can find local reefers that would do the same. I know I would pick you up on the offer like that for sure.

JL will only take bubble tips in as a donation and give you $0 for them.
They turn around and ask $60 for them, used to be $80.
Better off to sell them here at a nominal cost, or even donate them to a fellow hobbyist.