Half Brain Dead

[acrowbat]

Sorry, I couldn't help myself there.

I recently purchased an open brain and it was looking wonderful when I brought it home but never really seemed to swell much. After a couple of days of feeding I noticed it was doing better. Then I noticed my female clown was always on it so I covered it with a clear plastic cup with holes in the side and top for flow and feeding.

It started to look great so I thought I would remove the cup and then BOOM! the thing practically shriveled up to a skeleton over night and almost entirely bleached out. So I put the cup back, placed a rock over the top to shade it from light and I have continued feeding it every couple of days for the last two weeks as it appeared that one of the two mouths was still eating and this morning that half was actually quite swollen in a good way and looks like it is making a recovery, the other side though shows no signs of life.

MY QUESTION IS THIS- if one half is indeed dead will the live half eventually take over the whole thing or will that half just be a bleached skeleton forever?

Thanks for your help.

 

[trinidiver]

Pics and your parameters will be nice

 

[3S1K]

Yes it will grow back over its dead skeleton. I had patchy brain that eventually fully covered the rock when it got healthy.

 

[alb_56]

Instantly messed up like that doesnt sound like a clown to me though, mine are in my lobo all the time and no damage. I would be looking for other culprits.

 

[kzooreefer]

A clown rubbing against it shouldn't hurt it, my clown loves to rub against pretty much everything I have and especially loves rubbing against and laying on my scolymia, which takes no notice of the clown. What more than likely did your brain in was covering it then exposing it it to full light, it didn't take kindly to the shock of full light again once it got accustomed to the shade.

 

[kzooreefer]

I wanted to clarify my last post in that clear plastics can block UV light to varying degrees depending upon what chemical it is composed of. So placing the cup over it may have acted like a sunscreen blocking some or all of the UV light from hitting the coral. Once you removed it you gave the coral a full dose of UV all at once to which it had become unaccustomed causing the bleaching or in terms of human skin it got sunburned.

 

[arnoldrew]

This is what he said:

MY QUESTION IS THIS- if one half is indeed dead will the live half eventually take over the whole thing or will that half just be a bleached skeleton forever?

He asked a simple question that doesn't require knowing his parameters to answer. I know people insticntively ask for parameters around here regardless of the question, but I'm glad he didn't bust out all the test kits just to satislfy someone else's off-topic curiosity. I know I'm making a mountain out of a mole-hill, but I'm tired of people asking stuff like "Can my hammer and frogspawn touch or will they sting each other" and the first "answer" is "WHAT'S YOUR PARAMS."

 

[tommyz44]

I had a tank crash, a while months ago. Unfortunatly happened while i was on a business trip too....when i came home i had lost alot. Half-3/4 of my pinapple brain was nothing but calcium. since then The heads start to cover over top of it. So to answer your question yup it will just grow right over the old skelleton

as for the reasoning, i cant imagine the clown doing anything to harm it. could be the placement, lighting, flow, ect.

 

[bboudreaux]

i have had a occelaris and maroon clown kill 2 trachs, 2 scolys, 1 elegance. my maroon was the main culprit but the occelaris did kill a scoly before i removed him. i would watch them dig into the center like they were trying to host them. This activity would start the slow decline of the coral. I had to break my tank down to catch the maroon, but not before he had killed quite a few corals. Then like a dummy i bought another clown, which started the same behaviour after about a year. I have gone clown free since then and will never have another. I'm not saying all clowns do this obviously but they can and do kill some LPS. Mine were digging into the coral, which i believe was cutting the flesh with it's own skeleton.

Just my 2cents

 

[MechEng99]

This is what he said:



He asked a simple question that doesn't require knowing his parameters to answer. I know people insticntively ask for parameters around here regardless of the question, but I'm glad he didn't bust out all the test kits just to satislfy someone else's off-topic curiosity. I know I'm making a mountain out of a mole-hill, but I'm tired of people asking stuff like "Can my hammer and frogspawn touch or will they sting each other" and the first "answer" is "WHAT'S YOUR PARAMS."

The OP may have asked a simple question, but heaven forbid people try to be helpful. The OP stated the coral was doing well previously, and now it isn't. So, that "simple question" actually requires knowing the parameters to answer. If the OP's parameters are off, then chances are, no, the coral will not regrow. A coral will not recover in a tank that is not healthy (which is a possibility in this case.) Let's focus on the coral's health, not web etiquette.