What's up monti?

[AndrewB]

I've had this monti. Cap. for about 2 months now. It started as a tiny square on the plug. The growth is weird to me but it is growing, not my main concern. My concern is now that it has reached the edges of the plug there are many tube like tiny things that appear to be coming up from the plug. They don't move. Can I scrape them? Dip them? Is it garbage? They have been there a week...

My params this AM
ph. 8
Temp. 77
Salinity 1.025
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Phosphate .05ppm
Nitrate 5ppm
Alk 9.5
Mag. 1400
Calcium 400.

My calcium is lower than I usually keep it. I added some and will test this evening. Making adjustments.

I would say overall my aquarium doesn't look as good as it has and I just have a paranoid feeling I'm missing something. I lost about 8 polyps of a zoanthid that was near this monti last week.

Live stock
2 cinnamons clowns
1 blue damsel
1 6 line wrasse
1 skunk cleaner shrimp
Mix of snails and hermits

All the frags in the aquarium are 2 months old. This is a reboot from my crash...

In the white circle you can kinda make out my tube things? Also, why the mounding up of this cap? My other cap is flat and full of polyps. Is it a flow thing?

 

[Crabs McJones]

Picture is kind of blurry. They look like, to me, vermetid snail tubes. You can break them off if they are.

 

[AndrewB]

Great. I have seen that name of nuisance around here but am not familiar with them. I broke them off and cleaned sucked up gunk with the baster.

Report back later. Thanks.

This is my other monti cap frag on an adjacent rock. Same 2 months, same size to begin with and very different growth. Lighting I guess to be very same, flow is the only factor I think different. Make sense?