Zoa base has orange roots

[illAtEase]

My new zoa appears to have some kind of root looking thing growing from its base across the frag plug.

Looking back at some older pictures earlier this week it was only a quarter of the length and wasn't very noticeable to raise any concerns.

The zoas seem happy and are all opened with no signs of being in distress. The concern is with it's rapid spreading; not sure if it should be dipped or a characteristic some zoas have.

Has any encountered this before?

 

[Crabs McJones]

Looks like an encrusting sponge of some type.

 

[illAtEase]

Looks like an encrusting sponge of some type.

Thanks for the quick reply!

Based on some quick googling on the sponge it doesn't sound too friendly once it grows larger.

Will try to manually remove it and hopefully won't mess things up.