lost a monti.cap.....was it the sand???

[smokinreefer]

hey guys...
came home today to find a smallish m.cap colony melting away. i had got this piece just before xmas.
up until today it was looking perfectly fine.
only thing that changed recently that could affect it is, my maroon clown had recently begun tossing sand around it. sometimes tossing sand on top of it. in the last few weeks i would blast the sand off with a turkey baster.
do you think that the maroon doing this several times over the last few weeks could irritate the m.cap so much that it would begin "melting"??
i don't know how else to describe it except for the tissue seems to be melting away...i can see strings/blobs of mucus from the tissue swaying in the current.

i managed to get 2 pinky nail sized frags off...hoping that these pieces will be unaffected. *crosses fingers*

oh one other thing...i just realized...i did just mkae a whole bunch of xenia cuttings in my sump last night. perhaps it is some chemical/toxins released that initiated this response from the m.cap?

FYI the m.cap was on the sand just off center in the tank. no other sps is showing any sign of stress.

i hate losing an animal under my care

your thoughts, opinions and theories are welcomed.

[EmilyB]

Damn digging maroons....

Can't say about the cap melting, but I turkey baste whenever I think of it, just because NOTHING like sand all over it.

You could try a piece of eggcrate below her lair.....you can remove this when company comes.... or not....I don't bother anymore..

I found she dug a lot less when she had a solid base of rock below her anemone, but, of course, I had to move everything around.......

OTOH, xenia stinks....man, does that stuff reek.... I have dreams about that smell man..... :P

[Jack]

Hey Shao,

I had a Maxi-jet 1200 pop off it's suction cups and go diving into my 6" DSB. Boy was I unimpressed when I came home, sand was everywhere and on "my" monti cap. Same thing happend to me.

Actually I was baby-sitting christy's corals when this happened and it was Christy's cap that did this. A small part did bleach and part of it died off but it survied and is now thriving in her tank, whew!

I would blame the sand. I hate losing anything in my care aswell.

[MitchM]

If your whole monti is sliming, then I would blame it on the xenia, but if the slime is only coming from the areas where the tissue is coming off, then I would blame it on the sand causing necrotic areas, as you and Jack already suggested.
I would up the water circulation to clear the slime away much more aggressively. It may grow back, if algae doesn't take a foothold on the exposed skeleton.

Mitch

[sumpfinfishe]

Hey Shao, IYWMO I would say it's the sand too. I added about an inch of new sand a few years back that I picked up from Mexico. Everything was great that morning, when I came home two days later however, the 402 had blown up a storm 12 times throughout each day :shock: . Due to my not thinking that morning ops: , I lost a really nice Colt and a small Green Brain from the sand suffocating these two pieces

Sorry hear that , and I hope the frags bounce back :!:

Rich