New Gorg trouble

[infpalex]

Hi all, I got an order yesterday from Gulf Coast Ecosystems of some truly magnificent stuff. One of which was a Rusty Gorgonian. I did the acclimation procedure like always, took care not to expose it to air, and everything like normal. It looks great in my tank last night, completely in tact, no rough spots or anything.

When I woke up this morning, it had lost literally 3/4 of it's flesh. It's a (mostly) bare skeleton and I am LOST as to what is going on. I got 2 others, a Tan Gorgonian and Purple Ribbon, and they both are doing great, look amazing.... no damage at all.

Any ideas as to why?

My params are perfect.

Nitrates- 0
Phospates- .06
Calcium 438
Alk 9dkh
Magnesium- 1350

I went ahead and vacuumed up the lost tissue and did a 10% water change, but I just don't get it. Any help would be appreciated. It's a newer system, 55 gal, lots of live rock and a Hob filtration system for now until my lifereef sump is ready. Only fish in there are 4 red spot cardinals and 1 very small Diamond Goby.

Oh and one more question, will this grow back? I've never had any gorgonian lose tissue, I always end up having to frag them incredibly often because normally they grow so fast for me.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[ca1ore]

It was probably damaged prior to arrival and just coincidence that it 'dropped its leaves' after getting into your tank. If there is healthy tissue left, it should regrow - though it'll take a while.

 

[infpalex]

Thanks for your input, I had the same hunch, just really sad, it was beautiful. I will try to give it lots of love and hope it grows back.

 

[Fallling]

I had a similar thing happen to a rusty gorg before. I got it (along with 7 - 8) others from sealifeinc.com. Everything looked great and after 3 - 4 days or so, the rusty gorg started losing tissue. A few days, it was still losing tissue rapidly. All the other ones were completely fine along with gorgs that I already had (including a couple nps). When I determined the tissue recession wasn't stopping, I did cut away all of the dead branches and tissue, leaving only the main stalk and healthy tissue left. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough and it still died. I never have figured out what happened.

Keep an eye on it. If the tissue recession doesn't stop, you'll likely need to try and save what's left by trimming away parts with dead tissue (similar to fragging sps with stn). On the other hand, if it has stopped or is slowing down, you should be just fine. Hopefully, it's not whatever happened to mine... I've had others lose a bit of tissue during/after shipping but then regrow it with no problems. IME, they grow tissue pretty rapidly. I've seen entire branches get grown over in a week or 2.