anyone had experience with STYLOPHORA (cat's paw) encrusting over wound?

[whalloper]

Hello everyone,

I came across a beautiful color morph of stylophora this weekend I could not resist. The colony is about 4" tall and appeared very healthy except for one branch which the owner said had been stung by another coral.

He gave me a great deal, so I had him cut that small branch off and took it home. What can I do to encourage the coral to encrust over that wound? I have been keeping it clean by blowing off debris with a baster. Should I put the wound away from light to discourage algae growth or toward the light to encourage coral growth?

I know Stylophora are pretty slow growers, so also Im asking if anyone has had this experience and how long it took to encrust/re-grow?

 

[amuruges]

If you sell me a frag of the zoos on your avatar I will tell you the answer.. j/k nice zoos.....

I had one that was just loosing tissue from the base and on a branch because of flow problems... I moved it in to a 100gal when I upgraded and had a wavemaker in there.. the branch (about half an inch in size) took a little over a month to encrust and grow back.

 

[cwegescheide]

I've fragged my stylo a few times already. I've had no problems with them growing over. Depending on the size I'd say it should take about a month or so for it to totally heal. FWIW my stylo is growing like crazy right now. Almost doubled in size in < 6 mos I'd say. Its a little bigger than a baseball now.

 

[whalloper]

thanks for the zoo compliment, amuruges! They grow like nuts - that colony is so much bigger than that pic which was only a few months ago. I think I might put them on ebay this summer...one of my favs.

So where did you guys have the cut part as far as lighting? Direct, indirect? I just dont want to see algae start to grow on it. I would say it is about 1/2" in diameter also.

 

[cwegescheide]

I may be wrong but the only way algae will grow on a coral is if it is dead..

 

[Amphiprion]

cwegescheide--not necessarily.

What wound are you referring to? The fragmentation site? If so, simply epoxy over it when you mount the frag. Given enough flow, light, good conditions, etc., will will encrust quite readily.

 

[scottywags]

My purple stylo got gnawed on by a certain fish I won't name, but anyway I had a hair algea outbreak about the same time, and that one little spot were it got chewed on started growing HA out of that spot for about 6 months. Then one day it just stopped and grew over like nothing ever happened. I would leave it alone and let nature take it's course.