badly injured leather

[debadoo]

I came home today to find my short spine urchin munching on my leather coral. By the time I pulled him off there was a large hole in the leather coral about half way up the stalk. What are it's chances of survival? Should I do anything for the coral or leave it alone to heal? I have now seperated the coral from the urchin. I am considering removing the urchin from the display tank all together.

 

[cmabrey75]

Just keep up with your water changes and make sure you water parameters stay in good shape. Leather corals can heal them selves quickly if everything stays conatant.

 

[debadoo]

Well, this morning I could see decay at the injury site and a new hole has formed on the other side of the coral. It must have been dying and that is why my urchin was eating it. I took it out of my tank to prevent it from killing everything in there. I took a few cuttings from the branches that appeared to be doing well and tied them to a rock. I don't know if there is any saving this coral or not. Has anyone else tried this? Once a leather starts to melt is it just a matter of time before it all dies or can parts be cut off and saved?

 

[insanefishguy]

Parts can be saved as long as you cut it well away from the decaying tissue. I recently got a large green polyp toadstool that handled shipping complications poorly. It started to die in the center and ran a "tunnel" from cap to base. I managed to save five small frags from the outermost edges of the cap.

 

[debadoo]

I thought that might work. I'm so glad I took the time to frag it this morning. At the rate it was melting I might not have had anything to frag if I had waited. My four little frags are looking pretty good this evening. I don't see any more melting going on and it looks like the polyps are trying to come out. Keeping my fingers crossed that this works.