What caused this. Hole in my toadstool

[ArmyReefer]

Woke up this morning to see this. I have no idea what could have caused this, 95% positive it happened over night. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

120 gallons
Alk 8
Calcium 430
Mag 1320
Phos .08
Nitrate 12

hermit crabs in the tank and a cleaner shrimp are the only thing that I have in there that would have picked at it, but it looks like a perfect hole. Could a frogspawn or torch tentacle that came off could have done it? Have had this leather from a 1 inch frag for 2 years, nothing new added to the tank in over a month.

 

[EuphylliaAddict]

I have a similar thing going on with my one toadstool, I'm thinking it's flatworms or something.... Hopefully someone chimes in.

 

[Crashnt24]

They do this naturally. They drop pieces of them selves to reproduce. This is part of that process. Mine splits and gets holes on the regular.

 

[EuphylliaAddict]

They do this naturally. They drop pieces of them selves to reproduce. This is part of that process. Mine splits and gets holes on the regular.

Good to know, I was worried about one I have, will the pieces float away at any point? Should I worry about my mp40 sucking those bits up and shredding it through my tank at all?

 

[Crashnt24]

I wouldn't worry. They are pretty hardy and usually sink to the bottom.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

They tear holes in order to stretch and rip. Mine did this and I still have some holes in it, but it moved itself from one rock to another about 3 inches over from where it was originally.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Even though this is sign of shedding, do inspect for any presence of a worm. 99% of the time , it’s due to shedding where they drop some of their tissue to form new heads

 

[ArmyReefer]

Thanks for all the replies, it had full polyp extension last night so I will keep an eye on it. I will also put some carbon into the tank tonight to help pull anything out from the shedding.

 

[EuphylliaAddict]

Thanks guys, the one Im worried about has 3 holes in it and it's in a rather high flow area, I read somewhere high flow helps them with this process. I didn't know they would self propagate. I have 3 different leathers and I wanted a few more but I'll just keep an eye out for them to split up and glue those pieces elsewhere. I had an emerald crab literally break a chunk off my one leather and it completely healed over the past 6 months or maybe longer. These are interesting corals to me now.