maze braincoral partialy burried in the sand, tissue damaged, will the damage spread?

[lilleahseafreak]

i put my maze brain on the sand bed when i got it a few weeks ago, and i had not realized it tipped over a bit and it could have been like that for quite some time (as long as a week). i pulled it from the sand and found that about 1/3 of the tissue was in the sand and has died to leave just the skeleton and some brown slime which i blew off. i have been watching it all day and i just cannot tell if the tissue damage is spreading or not...i think it may be spreading a tiny bit at a time, ....or i could just be paranoid....

i placed the coral on top of a rock out of the sand and put it in an area with plenty of current to help blow away any slime.

what is the chance of loosing the whole coral? should i bust off what died? what can i do to help it recover?

this sucks, i fried my brain

 

[MandM]

It was good to get it up off the sand, the bacteria can infect areas that get abrasions from the sand. I would watch for further retraction. The current will help as long as it's not too strong.
If it does spread, you may want to treat it. I use Seachem Reef Dip Coral disinfectant to dip any new corals before they go into QT. It can also be used to treat corals, but not in the display tank. If you have a spare tank to use during treatment and recovery it may be a good idea to protect it from crabs or other critters that may pick at it. If you don't have a treatment tank you can put a strawberry basket under it and gutter guard around it to isolate.