Need an I D plus some other pics of the not so common things...

First up, I believe this to be a monti cap, haven't fully checked, but I still haven't seen polyps. Its hard to the touch, not flexible at all like an algae. Which leads me to believe its a monti. I got some poop brown polyps from a buddy of mine back in Dec in hopes they were color up into something nice, I went ahead and fragged them and put them on 1.5" frag disks(use that for size reference). When I fragged them, there were no signs of anything like this. I haven't spoke to him yet to ask if he has a red monti cap or not. These are super tiny colonies, ranging from 1/4" to 1", 3 colonie total.

So here are the pics.




People who know me and what I do, know I come across some of the strangest stuff in my tanks. So to keep adding to the strange/odd/not so common aquaria stuff, here some pics....
This one, when I noticed it, was about 1/2", thought it looked cool, figured it was some type of algae, so I left it to see what it would. I figured it would more then likely go away cause Ive seen similar things like it in the past that just went away. Well it didnt, its now 2x2"+ and growing strong 2 months later.
When I first noticed it...

Today...


This next pic, is full of life... I did not make this rock, its actually a large frag disk (2x2x1 cone shaped) with an acro growing on top. It came to me with a clean/bare frag disk, and this stuff has just shown up over the past 2 months.
There are Red, Purple, Green, Brown and yellow Macroalgaes growing on this. Different sizes, shapes and textures. Truly a one of a kind piece.

 

I spoke to a buddy of mine and it turns out that it is not a red monti cap. Its a red plating coraline algae...

 

i agree

 

me too, i like the look of that stuff .

 

what about the second set of pics? is it hard or soft and flexible?

 

Its soft and flexible. Its a macroalgae, dont remeber the exact name of it right off for the life of me.

 

Hey really nice stuff! intresting weird and colourful! what more could you ask for?!

 

hahaha! I'll take that stuff over nudi's any day of the week. Nudi's are the most common hitch hiker Ive been seeing lately.

 

On everything or just certain corals? Is it because you're getting corals from the wild or from a propogator? Just curious

 

From a propagator... I guarantee 1 out of 3 shipments will have zoa's nudi's. Monti's nudi's are hit or miss. I would like to get some more monti nudi's so I can run some more experiments with potassium permanganate on them. The ones I had are all gone now ;D . I dont wish them on my worst enemies.... maybe one or two of them, lol. Im just glad Im deligent about keeping pests out of my tanks. I hate them and for sure dont wanna pass them off to paying customers.

One of the propagator's I get stuff from or I should say use to get stuff from, who is well known in the aquaria trade and is speaking at MACNA XX this year is notorious for pests. I got a shipment of 60 frags, sps and zoa frags. I killed close to 100 aiptasia, 3 colonies of hydroids, and EVERY SINGLE ZOA FRAG HAD BRYOPSIS!!! I honestly dont know how this guy is still in business selling crap like that. Either the stores he's selling to dont care what they sell to their customers or they dont pay attention. Propagators like that are the reason why pests are running rampede in peoples tanks now days. That just goes to show how much they care about the product as they do their profits.