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Blue Clove Polyps
Last updated on November 17th, 2023
About Blue Clove Polyps
Blue clove polyps are a small flower-looking coral that spreads quickly through the reef tank and can kill other coral by growing over them. Often these are bought as a beginner coral but quickly become a pest!
How to Prevent Blue Clove Polyps
Clove polyps are a coral that are either bought and added to the reef tank or came with other additions such as live rock or coral frag plugs. The easiest way to prevent blue clove polyps is to simply not purchase them, or do not add any surfaces where they may be hitchhiking. This includes cutting frag plugs off coral and bleaching or drying rock before adding it to the reef.
How to Get Rid of Blue Clove Polyps
Unfortunately, Blue Clove Polyps are VERY difficult to get rid of. They grow on everything they touch, growing fast! There are two methods of getting rid of clove polyps that I know about. The first is the Reef Delete. This is a small, very powerful, light that kills the cells of the blue clove polyps. This may take a number of treatments but will eradicate the polyps. The other method that has worked for me was using Fendendazole.
Killing Blue Clove Polyps with Fendendazole
Fendendazole is an ingredient in dog de-wormer. This medication can also be used to kill blue clove polyps, but also kills a number of other soft coral and invertebrates. WARNING: Fendendazole will kill snails, clove/polyp corals, bristle worms, and possible other coral. Make sure you remove any snails, inverts, and coral you are worried may die. Personally, I had no problems with my SPS, LPS, or even mushroom coral with this treatment. While this was my experience, I cannot guarantee the same results.
How to Kill Blue Clove Polyps with Fendendazole
Before you do ANYTHING, find a temporary holding tank for all of your snails, soft corals, and other invertebrates. This tank CANNOT have any of the treated water after the Fenbendezole is added as it will kill these coral and invertebrates. This may be for a couple weeks or a couple months. Unfortunately I don't have a way to know when the water will be safe for these animals and coral again.
You will need to use a source of Fenbendazole that you trust. Personally, I used Safe-Guard Dog Dewormer as it is already an easy to use powder and weighed out for you. Each of the 1g packets of Safe-Guard Dog Dewormer contain 22.2% Fenbendazole, or 222mg.
To kill Blue Clove Polyps with Fenbendazole, you will want to add 2mg per gallon of aquarium water. Some people prefer to try half doses, which I also did, and it works as well. You will just want to ensure it does the job or you may need to do a second dose. You will want to mix a packet of the Safe-Guard Dog Dewormer with a gallon of aquarium water. This will treat up to 111 gallons. If you are treating a 55g tank, you would only need half of this and can dispose of the other half.
Simply add this mix to your aquarium and let the magic happen. I left my skimmer and all other filtration running and saw no issues. Within 3-5 days you should start to see the polyps dying off by turning into little white dots. The pest coral may take up to two weeks to fully die off however.
While this is treating the tank, initially, you will want to stop water changes to ensure the Fenbendezole remains in the water. After the clove polyps are mostly dying off (4+ days in usually) you can resume regular water changes.
When Can I Add Soft Coral and Invertebrates after Fenbendezole?
There is not a perfect way to know when the reef tank will be safe for soft coral or invertebrates after Fenbendezole. The best way I recommend is to do water changes for a couple weeks and test the tank with "test coral". This means adding a single polyp of a coral such as the Mandarin Fireworks Clove Polyps or Xenia on a frag plug, in the sand. Making sure it survives a week before adding the the rest of the coral back to the aquarium. This may not be true for invertebrates as well, so again, I would add 1 snail to test the water before adding them all back.
What Eats Blue Clove Polyps
There are no known predators to blue clove polyps.
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