How best to remove zoas from overflow?

I have limited experience fragging corals, so I'm looking for some input here.

I have a large zoa colony growing on my overflow. The problem is that it's starting to overcrowd a fledgling pipe organ colony I also have growing on the overflow.

What's the best way to trim the zoos back? Can I just use a knife to sever off the connecting tissue for the zoas in the section I want to remove and then peel off that section using my forceps?

I'd really like to preserve and grow the pipe organ colony. The mother colony died off, and what you can see in the pic now started out as two lone polyps that attached themselves to my overflow last winter.

Cheers.

 

Use a scraper blade and GENTLY sccrape them off of it.

 

Agreed with above.

I would take the edge off a razor blade and scrape them off. Use gloves when handling the loose polyps, no need to chance a dose of palytoxin. I say dull the blade because I've had them slip and turn, cutting my fingers while doing the same removing Xenia from the glass.

 

My buddy was scraping paly's off his overflow and got something in his eyes. He had to go to the hospital and have his contacts removed and his eye was shredded. The contact may have saved his eye from being really badly damaged but he was in a lot of pain and discomfort for awhile. His eye was swollen and he had to put a whole bunch of drops in it. May want to wear glasses. He figured since it was underwater he was all good but it somehow got his eye anyway.

 

Thanks for all the advice, I wasn't even thinking about the toxin side of things. I'll wear gloves for sure.

Cheers.