Gorgonian Help!

[mike33]

Hi, I put a 2" purple gorgonain with yellow polyps frag into my tank last night and woke up with it detached and in the rocks. I believe a scarlet crab may have gotten to it. Can I just reattach to the rock? Two of the branches were gone and the yellow polyps are all gone. Any thoughts?

 

[KarlBob]

The crab may have snipped off the base and the branches, but the gorgonian probably withdrew the polyps on its own. I'm no expert, but the advice I've heard in the past was to cut off a small amount of flesh at the bottom of the stalk, apply glue to the bare stalk, and glue it to a rock.

I've never heard of a crab doing this, but I had a similar problem with a crawfish years ago in a freshwater tank. One night it decided to play lawnmower, and I woke up to find all my plants floating at the top of the tank, precisely snipped free of their roots.

 

[ranger07]

Never had luck with them.

 

[dendro982]

As was said, you can remove soft tissue at the base, and glue it into the hole in LR:

This is standard procedure for all gorgonians, you should be safe.

You can cut off damaged parts.

Within 1 day after trimming/fragging it should show polyps again.

 

[SEAFROG]

Some crab will eat the tissue of gorgonain. My self i don"t keep any
crabs. good luck.