White mold-looking stuff on new frags

[DurTBear]

Has anyone ever experienced this? I just bought some frags from an online vendor and although a couple of the frags are opening up, others haven't opened up yet and a few of them have this white mold-looking stuff that seems to be engulfing them. What is this stuff?! It's been 3 days since I got the frags so I'm being patient because I know it can take days for them to open. But I'm afraid this white stuff is killing the zoas. Thanks for the help.

 

[dc_909]

Fungus

 

[killingseed]

look like sponge. you can fresh water dip and remove with soft toothbrush.

 

[geoxman]

It is white fungus. You can either cut all infected polyps off the rock and discard or put pure tincture on the infected polyps. The rock is rotting underneath the polyps and causing a bacteria build up under the skin. You can also try a HP dip, but I would put tincture/lugols directly on the infected area as well as cut off the infected polyps. I would also keep them in BIG flow after the dip. The fungus will effect other polyps in your tank so be careful! good luck!

 

[Reef Junkie]

It's like Geo said, frag this rock.
Something is rotting inside the colony. Probably a sponge or clam.
It common from vendors that ship wild colonys.

Take the colonys out and break them up. Then scrub them gently in a bowl of tank water with a soft toothbrush. Then place them in some decent current, they should recover.

 

[dc_909]

Do they stink? That is generally a good sign of rotting zoas.

 

[kelled2]

Act Quickly or you will lose the whole colony!!!!!! Clean off all dead and dieing polyps scrape off the the funky stuff from the rock any polyps that come off that look viable I will put them on a frag plug or rubble and hit them with a good blast with a powerhead to wash them off. Keep the remaining polyps on the rock in lots of flow and keep a close eye on them. I usually give them a good spraying a couple of times a day directly from a power head to knock off any of the decaying polyps or mat that was not manually removed until they begin to look normal

 

[DurTBear]

Thanks for all the advice guys. I'll start cleaning these guys right away!

 

[DurTBear]

Well, I tried saving as many polyps as I could and put them on plugs. Hopefully they will recover and open up but I threw away quite a few of them. Unfortunately, I don't know if I can get any money back or future store credit. Too bad because now I'm a little gun shy from ordering from them again even though I've had good experience with them in the past.

By the way dc_909, they smelled absolutely terrible when I took them out. Reminded me of what shipped live rock smelled like until I scrubbed all the black die off from the rock. Probably the same thing.