how dead is dead?

[Little Lucy 27]

picked up a tank today that was drained (I don't yet know how long) and sitting dry..the guy got evicted and left a fabulous 100 gallon tank...picked it for for unbelievably cheap (almost free) anyway when moving all the (once) live rock and sand bed (6" thick) a piece of what once was a blue leather coral broke off and it is still very deep blue inside..my dumb question (sorry, but, I dunno) is how dead is dead? Any chance of life from this?

 

[Hormigaquatica]

Dead is pretty much forever...
The only coral I can think of off hand that would be blue when broken is Heliopora aka Blue Ridge Coral. The deep blue color of this coral is only visible on dead patches that dont have any living tissue left over them. The living coral would be brown. Afraid youre probably starting from scratch as far as livestock goes.

 

[Akimbo]

+1 to Hormi sounds like dead Blue Ridge.

 

[oldreefer76]

+2 I know Hormi personally and he knows his stuff

 

[Little Lucy 27]

you would be correct....I looked it up and you are right on the money...
this guy had such an interesting cool set-up....I would have loved to see it in it's glory...it is an older (1/2 inch thick glass) 100 gallon with a plenum...pvc frame,eggcrate wrapped in screen a layer of fine sand..window screen another layer of fine sand son and so forth for about 4 layers and then it was more window screen and a layer of course oolite (I guess) (about 6" in total) and in the sump he had white rocks in two sections and a box with a spray bar over rolled up course plastic webbing with a finer layer of batting sandwiched between it and then bio- balls in another section...oh and a sand/mud bed under the rocks...the sand/mud bed is actually still wet....