Please Help ID this Growth on Astrea Shell

[nriley1233]

Please help ID this in my tank! Last week, I saw a major pile up of my nassarius snails on top of this astrea shell. The astrea shell is empty. The next morning I found what I thought was a clutch of eggs on the shell. Fast forward a week later, the clutch no longer looks like eggs and research of nassarius snail eggs don’t look like this either. Now I don’t know if I should remove the shell or be happy??! Everyone TIA!!

 

[Trinh Fish & Corals]

looks like a coral

 

[nriley1233]

Interesting. I have a galaxea in the tank. Do they reproduce this way?

 

[Alexopora]

Interesting. I have a galaxea in the tank. Do they reproduce this way?

I have had galaxea for years and have never seen any that reproduce through polyp bailout (similar to how pocillopora spread). Polyps look way too small to be galaxea, maybe try to take a picture of it again with your lights on. Im leaning towards some kind of sps (perhaps a porites, pocillopora or monti).

 

[nriley1233]

Here are two better pictures.

 

[nriley1233]

I’m completely at a loss on trying to ID this.

 

[nriley1233]

Looks the pictures didn’t attach at first

 

[nriley1233]

I looked up the suggested sps coral and I’m not sure. I’ve not added any sps to the tank and I dip my corals except for the anemones. I guess I will keep an eye on this one. I just wasn’t sure if it was on its way to becoming an unwanted pest.

 

[encrustingacro]

The coral must have hitchhiked on the astraea (actually lithopoma) snail. Astraeas are from the Atlantic, so I think it would be some sort of Atlantic coral. Maybe porites or madracis?

 

[nriley1233]

If it’s a madracis then it makes for a very interesting hitchhiker. It will be fascinating to see what develops.