Encrusting Monti-what to do?

[SouthFla]

So in my rookie months with my reef, I bought a Montipora that I *thought* was a plating/scrolling Monti. A little over 1year later my 3" diameter Monti is now encrusting blob-like over everything and has reached a few of my favorite SPS colonies. To make it worse I split the Monti in two upon introduction so it's doing this in two places in my tank

I tried to break and pry it off with a screwdriver, but it wouldn't budge and I was afraid if disrupting the rest of the reef area with too much force.

What should I expect with it encrusting over the bases of my nearby colonies? Any suggestions to stop the advancement, or should I just let things play out?

Thanks for any help!

 

[Potatohead]

Easiest thing is to smother it in epoxy

 

[cas1069]

let it play out, some of the corals may put up a good fight

 

[SouthFla]

Thanks for the input folks. I'm kind of a hands-off minimalist reefer, so I guess I'll let it play out a bit, with epoxy at the ready.

 

[jda]

You can kill it back pretty easy with kalk paste. You will need to turn the pumps off for a while, though.

 

[Wazzel]

Brake off what you can then epoxy or kalk paste the rest.

 

[cobra2326]

Is that actually an encrusting monti or is it just growing strangely? It just looks like a normal cap. I have one of these too and if it starts doing this I'm gonna pull it out.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

I use a scalpel to trim back my monti's occasionally. Even the caps will encrust into other corals. I find a scalpel does a good job at chipping/scraping sps off the rock work. I've also used it to remove heavily encrusted acros I no longer wanted.

 

[C.Eymann]

Is that actually an encrusting monti or is it just growing strangely? It just looks like a normal cap. I have one of these too and if it starts doing this I'm gonna pull it out.

The ridges on the coenosteum tell me this is probably M. foliosa or M. hogsoni. Both species will encrust as well as plate. M. capricornis usually just has bumps, not ridges.

I'd use epoxy and regular fragging to keep it under control.

 

[cobra2326]

The ridges on the coenosteum tell me this is probably M. foliosa or M. hogsoni. Both species will encrust as well as plate. M. capricornis usually just has bumps, not ridges.

I'd use epoxy and regular fragging to keep it under control.

Thanks, great info!

 

[C.Eymann]

Thanks, great info!

Most welcome :thumbsup:

 

[SouthFla]

The ridges on the coenosteum tell me this is probably M. foliosa or M. hogsoni. Both species will encrust as well as plate. M. capricornis usually just has bumps, not ridges.

I'd use epoxy and regular fragging to keep it under control.

Thank you all for the great info. Is the encrusting as opposed to plating growth a function of environmental conditions in my tank (placement/lighting/flow)? Certainly would love it to plate out instead of blob-like encrusting over everything :thumbdown