Favite brain dying, can I save it?

[TammyLiz]

I am new to saltwater but I wont ask forgiveness for my huge blunder since an animal is dying because of it.

I bought a 12g nano cube from a guy who was tired of the hobby and getting out of it. Mainly there was just live rock in the tank but there were three corals, one of them being a small orangeish slimey blob that he said was a favite brain. Obviously even to my untrained eye it was already in distress, closed up tight and slimey. Then he dropped against live rock while he was taking things out of the tank without even flinching as if it was no big deal, and let it roll around a little before i reached in and rescued it.

But what I did was even worse. It is for some reason on the end of an elongated piece of rock, so needs to be wedged between other rocks to stand up. I guess I didn't wedge it well enough, because it fell over against the back of the tank and I guess I didn't notice it right away because yesterday afternoon when I did notice it and stood it up, it was flat where it had been resting against the wall, and the whole tank had a bad smell to it.

Today the part that was against the wall looks bumpy, like the soft part is sunken, and a little white. So I am assuming that part is going to die or is already dead. It is about half of the coral (its not very big). The rest of it looks exactly like it did when I got it on Monday, which is pretty bad, too.

My main concern is that since the tank is only 12 gallons this could cause major issues for everything else if it rots in there and I don't want that to happen. Secondarily I'd like to save whatever part of this coral that I can and hope that one day it could be beautiful again.

My zero experience doesn't make me the best candidate for this but please, help me out with any advice you can give.

Should I put it in a bucket with power head and heater? I have a shop light, 13W CF 7000K that I could put over it, too. Good idea, bad idea?

What water params are best for a sick coral? Temperature has been 79 in the main tank. Salinity unfortunately dropped a little with the move and I didn't discover that until the next day, because I misplaced the hydrometer while I was setting the tank up. It was 1.025 before, now it's 1.022, according the hydrometer which I have not tested against a refractometer. I don't have any test kits yet but I'm going to pick some up this afternoon.

Should I feed it or not? He gave me some Kents marine stuff but I'm not sure how to use that.

So so sorry for my newness. I think I've done this all out of order by getting something that already had coral in it.

I will post a picture later but can't now since someone borrowed my camera today.

 

[TammyLiz]

I blew it off with a turkey baster to try to remove some of the slime and a little later it started to open up a little teeny bit, rather than being closed as tight as it was before. I got my camera back, so I got some pictures. I really don't think this is a favites brain. Looks like palythoa polyps?

from above, you can see the white damage on the right where it was resting on the wall yesterday (water level is down because I don't have everything straight in the tank yet)

side view of the area that I didn't damage any further

 

[GreyHawk1968]

Looks like a Palyt to me. Give it some current and get some carbon in the tank to help with the scent and any chemicals it might release. The flow over it will help with removal of the dying parts. Don't blast it but a moderate flow will be good for it.
They are pertty tough and it should make it back ok.
It feeds primarily off light so don't be in a big hurry to feed it. Let it continue to open and hopefully a little time will help. Keep your SG around 1.025 and temp about 80.
Good Luck

 

[gh0st]

Yeah, defenitly not a Favites, but from the from the Button Polyp family. GreyHawks above advice seems dead on to me.

A Dip wouldn't hurt it either, Luguls, Reef Dip, or something comparible.

 

[TammyLiz]

Sounds good to me. So I will leave it in the tank with a little current over it and maybe tomorrow check out what kinds of dips the LFS here sells.

I don't keep carbon around, being a freshwater planted person I don't use it in my other tanks. I guess that'll be changing, so I'll pick some of that up, too. Anything to get rid of that smell. :lol: (they should have a green barfing smiley on this site...judging by the two days of experience I have, it seems like it could come in handy)

 

[justincognito]

most definitely Palythoa. Toxic so handle with care. Carbon is an excellent idea. It looks like it may be on some dying sponge, hard to tell with the pic. That would be causing the smell and localized die off of tissue. THey often associate in the wild. If there is big chunks of rotting sponge get them off manually even if you remove the Palythoa from the main clump. It will reattach to almost anything.

 

[justincognito]

Iodine (Lugol's) and other coral dips are often toxic to the Zoanthid family, which the Paly is in.

 

[paininthewrasse]

also just as an FYI to you.. the corals are not as "fragile" as you would think.. having it up against the side of the tank or if it falls to the sand it usually isnt a problem so don't worry about it to much.

Yes, def a paly colony. I'd put it in a place w/ higher flow to get some of that gunk off of it.

 

[TammyLiz]

Thank you so much for all your help. I realize this thread is in the wrong forum but I thought I'd update here, anyway. Do mods on this forum move things to keep them organized? Should I PM one?

Anyways, it is not on a sponge. It is on rock, but all the rock in the tank is pretty choked up with hair algae and other debris. There was no cleaning crew when I bought the tank and I'm not sure how long it went without one.

I've taken some pictures of the paly colony. Here it is Wednesday a little while after I moved it to a new location. Once again it opened a little more after I blew it off with a Turkey baster. You can see some of those lower polyps starting to barely peek open.

Here it is Thursday

And Friday

Friday again from another angle. It is still white and closed where it was resting against the wall

In the third and fourth pictures you can see some brown stuff on it...what is that? It comes out of the center of the polyps and floats away like waste. It did that a LOT.

I didn't do a dip or anything and from what you guys are saying it sounds like its good I didn't. I am not sure what was so different about the conditions it was in while in the care of the previous owner since I'm not sure exactly what he did, but all I have done is a large water change and moved it to a slightly higher flow area. Maybe I have the lights on longer, too, but I don't know. I saw it twice at his house, once in the late morning and once four days later in the early evening when I went to pick up the tank and both times it was closed up so tight it didn't even look like it had the ability to open.

Today it is looking even slightly better but not significantly.

 

[TammyLiz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10148879#post10148879 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by justincognito
Iodine (Lugol's) and other coral dips are often toxic to the Zoanthid family, which the Paly is in.

You know what? I think you just helped me figure out what this paly colony's problem might have been.

With the tank I received a few bottles of Kent Marine supplements, one of which is a half empty bottle of concentrated iodine which I can only assume he was using in this tank. Since he thought it was a favites brain I bet he was dosing it, and with no skimmer it could have really built up if I understand the way that works. On the bottle it says "Algae also use Iodine", and there was/is an insane algae problem in the tank. Possibly the problem?

There are some mushrooms in the tank, too, though, which I have read do need iodine.