Can these SPS recover?

IUfan

Member
Okay, long story short had a bunch of frags get exposed to 45ppt salinity for about a week.

I moved everything into the new systems and was aiming to keep the sps frags in the old 29, just to allow the new system to age a bit more.

I moved a lot of the equipment and ended up mixing up my salt water with top off water, so was topping off with salt water, didn't catch it because the conductivity probe is now on the new system. And the corals didn't show signs until overnight they turned white.

Prior to all this, I fragged one of the SPS peices and placed into the new system to be a guinea pig. The guinea pig was doing very well, So when the corals in the old system started to bleach I moved them to the new system to provide better stability.

I had a large monti-cap that went completely white, and is now Browning, I read somewhere that sps can recover sometimes, and that the process after bleaching is to turn brown? I'm not so sure that's correct but maybe someone can shed some more light.

The 3 other frags that were completely white are still white and I don't have much hope for. There were several others that kept color but retracted there polyps, they have now extended there polyps again and look normal.
 
I had a spike to 1.30 sg for a couple days in a tank i was doing some experiments, i noticed the spike and moved corals to different tank with correct parameters.

-birds nest frag lost all flesh aside from 3 or 4 polyps which died a few days later
-green w purple rim monti cap went totally white and then died a few days later
-green elkhorn acro lost all flesh and died aside from a very small tip about 4 milimeter long which has since been growing well.
 
I had a spike to 1.30 sg for a couple days in a tank i was doing some experiments, i noticed the spike and moved corals to different tank with correct parameters.

-birds nest frag lost all flesh aside from 3 or 4 polyps which died a few days later
-green w purple rim monti cap went totally white and then died a few days later
-green elkhorn acro lost all flesh and died aside from a very small tip about 4 milimeter long which has since been growing well.

Just curious, but how did you come to own an endangered species?
 
I helped a buddy break down a tank a few months ago and behind his rockwork buried in the sand we found a completely white monti cap on a frag plug. He didnt even know he had it so god knows how long it was buried. Anyway I was 100% sure it was dead but I took it home and stuck it in my sandbed in the shade. A month later it was completely brown and extending polyps. Three months later it was a green monti cap with blue polyps! If it still has flesh like others have said it has a chance. If most of the flesh is gone but some is left, cut the dead away and reglue the piece with flesh to a new plug and you will likely save it, even if its only a 1/4 inch. Good luck
 
Here is a few pics of the affected frags.

They were completely white, since putting in the new tank with ideal params, they have turned this brown color.

Is this algea buildup on the dead skeleton? Or is this part of the recovery?
 

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I've had coral grow back from 3 polyps.
I've also had a coral recover from light gray.

Over here we have to hold on to what we have.
Some would just dump an unhealthy coral and buy new one.

Your frags don't look good and coming from completely white with no polyps I'd say they are lost.
 
Here is a few pics of the affected frags.

They were completely white, since putting in the new tank with ideal params, they have turned this brown color.

Is this algea buildup on the dead skeleton? Or is this part of the recovery?

That would be diatoms :idea:
 
If there is any flesh left it can come back. I have had sps that I was sure were dead and forgot about them or knocked them behind some rocks only to notice months later that it was growing out of the crevice.
 
Yeah, that's what I figured.

I might just leave them in there for a few more weeks just in case.


I would do the same. Its tough to tell from the pics if there is any flesh left at all. Looks mostly like algae growing on the dead skeletons as others have said. Try blowing the algae off with a turkey baster. If they are not taking up space that you need for other coral just. Leave em in. Maybe you get lucky and one or more comes back. If it were me I would hold onto a little longer and clean em up a bit with a baster. Ya never know ๐Ÿ˜‰
 
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