What's a good high light, encrusting, non-plating coral?

muzikalmatt · Jun 28, 2020

I'm looking for a high light encrusting coral that doesn't plate to put high on my rock work. I don't want anything plating like monti-caps to avoid shadowing the corals below. Any suggestions?

andrewey · Jun 28, 2020

Have you looked at any of the encrusting montiporas (e.g. sunset, rainbow, pokerstar, etc.)?

Just be careful, even if put high on your rockwork, they can quickly take over. It will take a bit of time, but that's why many put their encrusting montis on rock islands or rocks they can remove/reaquascape if need be.

muzikalmatt · Jun 28, 2020

andrewey said:
Have you looked at any of the encrusting montiporas (e.g. sunset, rainbow, pokerstar, etc.)?

Just be careful, even if put high on your rockwork, they can quickly take over. It will take a bit of time, but that's why many put their encrusting montis on rock islands or rocks they can remove/reaquascape if need be.

I was thinking about sunset or rainbow monti, but I've been having mixed results with montis. The rock I want to put it on is removable if need be, so I'm not to worried about a fast growing coral, especially if it looks good. I'm currently dealing with trash palys that have taken over this rock, so once I remove them I want to replace them with a nice encrusting coral.

OrionN · Jun 28, 2020

Be careful with removing polyps and Palys. Can be toxic. A few Reefers landed in the hospital tangling with them. Palytoxins of Zoanthids corals

muzikalmatt · Jun 29, 2020

OrionN said:
Be careful with removing polyps and Palys. Can be toxic. A few Reefers landed in the hospital tangling with them. Palytoxins of Zoanthids corals

Thanks, I'm definitely being careful. I'm using arm length gloves, mask, and goggles. I'm only removing a few at a time and doing it during a water change, then running fresh carbon and polyfilter to remove any excess palytoxin from the water column. I've had pretty good success with this method so far, it's just slow and these things grow fast.

IKD · Jun 29, 2020

Have you looked at ones like JF Beach Bum, CrazyT, Peyote Dreams, Kung Pao Monti’s?

homer1475 · Jun 29, 2020

Sunset monti.

Non plating, and encrusts very fast. I started with a frag the size of your pinky nail, in just over a year has taken over the entire 4x4 frag tile, and has reached out onto my rockwork a couple inches.

Fakegolfnews · Nov 7, 2021

OrionN said:
Be careful with removing polyps and Palys. Can be toxic. A few Reefers landed in the hospital tangling with them. Palytoxins of Zoanthids corals

Ive had it twice, just a bad headache for me

Fakegolfnews · Nov 7, 2021

IKD said:
Have you looked at ones like JF Beach Bum, CrazyT, Peyote Dreams, Kung Pao Monti’s?

That all plate and or encrust

IKD · Nov 7, 2021

Fakegolfnews said:
That all plate and or encrust

Not sure I understand your reply. You asked for encrusting monti’s right? The one’s I listed are encrusting Monti’s…

Fakegolfnews · Nov 11, 2021

IKD said:
Not sure I understand your reply. You asked for encrusting monti’s right? The one’s I listed are encrusting Monti’s…

Those montis you listed can either plate or encrust or both deoemding on where you put it and where it wants to go from there. The spongodes monti can plate, encrust and form upward arms like a digi kinda

IKD · Nov 11, 2021

Fakegolfnews said:
Those montis you listed can either plate or encrust or both deoemding on where you put it and where it wants to go from there. The spongodes monti can plate, encrust and form upward arms like a digi kinda

Ah ok, I see your point. The only time I’ve seen them start to grow out off the rock is when they are out of rock to encrust on. Even so, the growth rate of these are so slow that it would take many many months or even years for them to start shading out corals below them

chipchipbro · Nov 11, 2021

Isnt that a zombie thread guys? OP was asking July 2020

IKD · Nov 11, 2021

chipchipmofo said:
Isnt that a zombie thread guys? OP was asking July 2020

LOL, you know when a party ends and the host went to bed and you end up having a good conversation with someone as you’re walking to your car? It’s one of those threads.

chipchipbro · Nov 11, 2021

IKD said:
LOL, you know when a party ends and the host went to bed and you end up having a good conversation with someone as you’re walking to your car? It’s one of those threads.

Love that stuff!