I assume they are stalagtites and not stalagmites. They originate from the ice cube tray and go up, maybe an inch. I can grab they ice cube and lift it from try by them. What the hell?
is it ice or mineral?
If it’s organic, burn the trays and buy new ones. They’re toxic at that point.
water’s dripping from the top onto your tray. it’s still an ice stalagmite.
I may be wrong (it happens) but I think you are seeing the results of filling an icecube tray with hot water instead of cold.
Steam rises, freezes, falls, as the water is cooled by the freezer. If you took at microscope to any icecube you’d see a rough not smooth surface.
Stalagmites. Stalactites grow down from a ceiling. Stalagmites grow up from the floor, although the term is probably not really right if they aren’t formed by drips from the ceiling.
Ice cube tray “ice spikes” Explanation here:
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/icespikes/icespikes.htm
Your water must be fairly pure, as those directions say to use distilled water.
I’ve always called them “ice spikes”. I haven’t checked yabob’s link, but basically they form kinda like mini-volcanos. The ice cube freezes at the top first, from the outside edges in, and under the right conditions you can be left with a tiny hole somewhere in the middle that isn’t frozen yet.
Ice takes up more volume than water since it forms crystals as it freezes. The expanding ice forces the remaining water up through the hole, where the outside of the bulge of water freezes. The inside remains liquid and continues to push upward. This continues, forming a longer and longer spike until either the end of the spike freezes over or the ice cube runs out of water to push up through the spike due to it all freezing.
There’s a video of one forming here:
Distilled water works best, since any impurities in the water can act as nucleation sites and make the hole freeze up before the ice spike forms.
I’ve been keeping track. Search this message board and you will be surprised about how often it comes up.
This and pivot irrigation circles
'tites from the top, 'mites like mountains.
CMC fnord!
It’s so nice that there’s a place where all the otherwise useless shit in my head is actually useful!
Interesting mnemonic, I was always taught stalaGmites = Ground, stalaCtites = Ceiling.
I get them using NYC tap water. Not every time, but frequently. Always wondered… ignorance fought !
Stalagmites, because they are mighty and grow up from the ground.
In a cave does every stalagmite have a corresponding stalactite?
“Stalagmites might hang from the ceiling…but they don’t.”
Those are my cheap-ass method of telling if my tap water is pure enough to give to my fish!
If I get spikes, then I don’t have to use distilled water for the fishy. No spikes means I have to let the water aerate and then sit for a day before I use it on him.
I also like them because they make nice handles for getting icecubes out of the trays.
“StalacTites hang Tight from the ceiling, stalagMites Might reach them someday.” I remember that mnemonic from the guide on a school trip to a cave and it still helps me keep it straight even though its not a very good one, as only the first part is really specific to stalactites, the 2nd part could apply to either. 
Lousy cave guide.
I certainly hope you warm them up before plopping them into the fish tank.
Yup - with an emphasis on the “StalacTITES hold on TIGHT”.
The mnemonic that I use is that it’s like ants in your pants: the mites go up and the tights go down.
I’ve seen these more than once after a power failure, when the freezer chills down quite slowly. Or perhaps the cube tray freezes from the bottom, with the air above being a bit warm. Normally the air would be extremely cold, and the water would quickly “ice over” into a thick layer with no hole.
not always. if there was, they would eventually meet to form a floor-to-ceiling column.