White mucus on polyps

[Wildorca]

I have a 26g FOWLER Bowfront tank. There are a few colonies of polyps on some of my live rock. Recently we've noticed a thick white mucus around them and they are dying. Any idea what is causing this? I've tested my water and everything is normal.

 

[AlSimmons]

It sounds like it might be either a bacteria or a fungus. Can you post a picture of the infected polyps?

 

[Wildorca]

Here you go. I forgot to mention we also have some berghia nudibranchs that hitch hiked on some of our live rock. They took care of the aiptasia we had, fortunately! Could they have killed our polyps too?

 

[AlSimmons]

Those polyps you had might have been a Hidden Cup coral. These often hitchhike there way into our tank on live rock sometimes. They're actually a pretty undemanding coral, so if your parameters are in fact ok then it's kind of odd they died. As far as that white stuff goes it's kind of hard to tell from that picture, but it looks like it might be a sponge of some sort. In most cases these are harmless, but there are certain varieties that can end up smothering things. I'm not sure if that's the case here, but definitely keep you eye on them.