Monti Cap "infection"

[Drake]

Hey guys,

I'm not 100% sure how to describe this or what the situation might be.. I recently purchased a monti cap from my LFS and it's currently in quarantine. It seems to be doing fine but I noticed the bottom of it has some gunk on it and it appears to perhaps be spreading to the edge? I haven't had it long enough to tell whether or not the gunk is growing. Some photos attached.

I scraped a little bit off to take a better look. It kind of chips off in pieces. Perhaps a type of encrusting algae? Or somehow related to a rock they might have fragged the piece off of? Regardless, this thing isn't going in my display until I know whats up.

Thanks in advance guys!

 

[Mock]

Looks as if this thing is dead underneath. A sort of STN. The algea is going to take over the dead side as it does with any dead coral area. I would dip it, possibly more than once in a medication to see if you cant stop the STN as you said it was nearing the edge and then give it light and see what it does. Its reversible and you can straiten it out if the other side is okay.

 

[droth335]

I don't think it is anything to be concerned about but dipping wouldn't hurt. As Mock noted above, it is the underside so it is not growing there. All of our caps have similar gunk on the undersides and they grow like weeds.

 

[Drake]

Yeah I've given it a dip or two so far. I'm still learning the finer points of "what dips kill exactly what" and since I wasn't positive what it was I didn't want to go infecting the display with some unknown alien-space-coral-disease

I'll just keep an eye on it a few more weeks and dip periodically. Thanks for the help guys!

(PS the tissue on the top part of the coral (opposite the gunk) is 100% alive and well it seems so I'm hoping it's not rotting through or something?)