coral polyps have a white crust and its spreading

I was told this is a Pagoda, so I was hoping someone could confirm that.
Any idea what it is and how to cure it?
I tried blowing it off, and I tried using a soft bristle paint brush to wipe it off and it seems pretty solid. is it a disease?

Click to zoom in

 

anyone?

 

did some google searching, I have no experience with Goniopora corals at all

didnt get any images that would correspond to yours, but did find a bacterial infection of these corals , which is reffered to as "Toothpaste" its a descriptive term that does seem to match you description

you might get a better hot rate from there

here is a Theil article that came up
http://www.fishdomain.com/article_goniopora3.shtml

Goniopora Corals

sorry not much help

Steve

 

It is a plate coral, the base is not round like a gonipora. I was told it was a pagoda.

 

sorry Rob

proved my point about knowing nothing about Gonis , I cant even recognise them!

hopefully someone else will

Steve

 

Well after you said gonipora, I decided to turn off the circulation and feed him some oyster feast. He took it all in and perked up a bit. Lets see if it was a nutrition issue. I managed to wipe off some of the slimy white stuff with a soft bristle paint brush, but the polyp I did it on seems to be reacting poorly to the cleaning. Ill check it in the morning and see if it did more harm than good.

 

Figured out what it was. I had lots of aptasia on that rock and yesterday I shut the circulation off to treat with aptasia x and some floated up and got in the pagoda's polyps and reacted exactly the same way. I quickly brushed it out and aimed the powerhead at them.
So I guess I just have to be careful with aptasia x from now on. They are all recovering, but this stuff is supposed to be reef safe and it appears as if pagoda may be affected by it.

 

I was going to say it looked like some kind of burn . . . have you thought about trying peppermint shrimp for aiptasia control?

~Will.

 

Yes, although it says reef safe, that means the small particals that float free shoud not have an effect on coral. A larger ammount getting right inside a polyp will "sting" it. If your polyps recover, then in effect aptasia X is reef safe.