Please help me ID this coral and STN advice

[jdizzle707]

Picked up this nice coral about a month ago. Not really sure what it is. Some kind of montipora I'm guessing.

Not knowing any better, i touched the coral with my bare hands. I know I should have worn gloves. Anyhow, some parts of it started dissolving. Rather thank freaking out with dip and fragging, I decided to be patient and let it be. I also did a 30% water change to address the algae bloom in my tank and cut down the feedings of my fishes.

You think he will recover? Necrosis appeared to have subsided. It's been a week now since he started showing signs of distress.

 

[john90009]

Whats your alk level at- usually if your hands were clean it wouldn't cause that unless u scraped at it.

 

[jdizzle707]

Low alk and high CA

Low alk and high CA

My alk is a little low around 7-8dkh. My calcium is over 520ppm and that could be related to the oceanic salt I've been using. I read oceanic can be pretty high in CA. I've switched to red sea this week. I'm also dozing with seachem reefbuilder @ a rate of 1 tsp every other day to get the alk level up.

 

[returnofsid]

Just an FYI, that coral is a Turbinaria scroll coral.

I've touched corals with my bare hand hundreds of times, if not thousands. It's never had any negative effect. Your low alk may be a culprit. In the effected spot, had sand or detritus settled on this coral? With "cup" or "plate" shaped corals, it's very important to not allow detritus to settle on them. The spot, showing on your coral, is typical of what mine look like if I allow detritus to settle on them for too long.

 

[jdizzle707]

Can these guys recover from this? Would the bare spot remain like that or will it be covered again eventually?

 

[Compguy]

It will turn brown from algae bloom that will start on the dead spots, but after some time it will grow over it. Maybe it just wasn't acclimated slow enough, could be caused by several things, just keep your eye on it, but if you need to I would frag it if it gets worst.

 

[returnofsid]

If the exposed skeleton "spot" gets larger, cover with a thin film of super glue, otherwise, leave it alone. Keep it in an area of decent flow, to keep detritus from settling on it. The flesh will eventually grow back over the spot.