Rescue Corals

[MechEng99]

I want to reemphasize ethical rescuing. Please do not take in dying animals unless you are prepared and educated to handle them properly. Without proper treatment, quarantine, and care, you could introduce disease/parasites/etc. to your tank. A discount is not worth this risk.

 

[Shaummy]

Kyle - that looks like an Acan to me. Any idea what was going on with the tank it came from? Looks like there was probably a water quality issue. A good tank will probably help it to start.

Shaummy - AWESOME! Please post up any tips you have.

The biggest thing is that the previous tank was baking this poor LPS to death with his DIY LED's as he was more into SPS. He had no "shade" areas to keep it from bleaching.

I'm running 4x96w Power compacts and plus I had some more shaded areas. I covered the coral to keep fish away and fed it mysis...almost every night and the tupperware kept all of the others from stealing it. The feeders came out regularly....and just nursed it back to health. These days I feed it maybe once a week or sometimes every other week.

 

[johnike]

Nice job Shaummy.

 

[Kyle918]

I want to reemphasize ethical rescuing. Please do not take in dying animals unless you are prepared and educated to handle them properly. Without proper treatment, quarantine, and care, you could introduce disease/parasites/etc. to your tank. A discount is not worth this risk.

Thanks. Once it inflated a bit, I did see that it was indeed an acan as I originally thought. I have read this thread for hours and have been very much intrigued to rescuing corals. I did try to determine the cause before purchase and also agree that it was poor water quality.

Hopefully in the future, I can have a setup similar to your QT regimen for rescues. Here is the acan now though. This is his 4th day in my tank.

Not so great iPhone camera but it's looking like it will be a keeper.

 

[MechEng99]

Fantastic Kyle! And FYI - my post about ethical rescuing wasn't directed toward you. I get quite a few people contacting me on how to save coral just so they can get a Scolymia for $10 or something. That greatly concerns me and wasn't the intent of this thread.

 

[Kyle918]

Fantastic Kyle! And FYI - my post about ethical rescuing wasn't directed toward you. I get quite a few people contacting me on how to save coral just so they can get a Scolymia for $10 or something. That greatly concerns me and wasn't the intent of this thread.

Gotcha. I agree with you nonetheless. Thanks for your help and for keeping up with this thread!!

Happy Thanksgiving as well!! :wave:

 

[nathan1986]

Great job Nathan! Any tips?

I did nothing to be honest. I did a fast acclamation and put it in the water as fast as I could. Didnt dip it in any solution and to this day have not fed it. It's been growing like crazy

 

[MechEng99]

I did a fast acclamation and put it in the water as fast as I could.

In really bad water quality cases, sometimes this is the best thing you can do! I still always recommend a dip to protect your system from the basic nasties, like flatworms. You can temperature acclimate the coral, then dip it in your tank's "good" water.

 

[Mr.Eeks]

Wow lots of nice corals here. I've got a chalice that I don't think is doing to well and I'm not really sure why. I doesn't appear to be just bleached from my lights. Here is the best picture I have of it.
http://i.imgur.com/bRCOPor.jpg
What I'm referring to is the white, skeleton that appears to be getting larger with the maroon tissue appears like it is receding.

 

[johnike]

Wow lots of nice corals here. I've got a chalice that I don't think is doing to well and I'm not really sure why. I doesn't appear to be just bleached from my lights. Here is the best picture I have of it.
http://i.imgur.com/bRCOPor.jpg
What I'm referring to is the white, skeleton that appears to be getting larger with the maroon tissue appears like it is receding.

My chalices don't like too much light or flow.
Maybe get it under a ledge for a while and see what happens, good luck.

 

[MechEng99]

Was the coral recently stung in that area or otherwise damaged? Is there an anemone nearby?

If not, it looks like a bacterial infection. I would take it out and dip it in something like CoralRx, iodine, TMPCC, Revive, etc.

Is the area quickly growing? Over how long? What are your water parameters? Any fish nippers?

 

[Mr.Eeks]

My chalices don't like too much light or flow.
Maybe get it under a ledge for a while and see what happens, good luck.

Did a PWC on Friday, got him a little more shade. I don't think the flow would be too much were I have him but will see how the shade helps.

Was the coral recently stung in that area or otherwise damaged? Is there an anemone nearby?

If not, it looks like a bacterial infection. I would take it out and dip it in something like CoralRx, iodine, TMPCC, Revive, etc.

Is the area quickly growing? Over how long? What are your water parameters? Any fish nippers?

No 'nems in the tank, but he is probably 6 inches from a frogspawn. I just recently noticed the damage, maybe few days before the holidays. Doesn't seem to be getting rapidly larger, but I know the maroon tissue was larger when I purchased him back in probably July. As for fish I have a single clown (female committed suicide recently) and a fairy wrasse. I have not done any testing in a little while. But plan to Monday so will post most recent then, however I've never tested above nil for anything, little lower usually on dkH and pH but usually steady and within a good range. Also all my corals have been dipped prior to going in my tank with the Bayer method. Frogspawn, fire and ice zoas, a small chalice (not growing, not shrinking but I see the tentacles at night) and this larger chalice. All other seem to be doing well, I haven't ever dosed, and don't feed, though I did pick up some coral food to try.
Thanks

 

[MechEng99]

Let us know how your water tests out. The frogspawn might've stung the coral - they can have very long sweeper tentacles. Also, Bayer is only useful on pests, not bacterial/viral issues.

 

[Mr.Eeks]

NO3 - 0.0
PO4 - 0.25 (it wasn't quite that color but it was very slightly darker than 0.0)
pH - a hair lighter than 8.2 so maybe 8.1
dKH - 8
Ca - 460

Besides the NH3 and NO2 tests that all I have.
Here is a picture of where I have everything positioned, little hard to see but far left on top of rocks you can see my zoas, just left of center halfway up rocks is my smaller chalice, right of center and just below the clown is the troubled chalice, and far right is my frogspawn. After moving the larger chalice the other day he is in the same spot just more shaded, I slide that large boulder up a wee bit to mostly cover him from the light.
http://i.imgur.com/pb7hOyh.jpg

 

[Mr.Eeks]

You can also see in that picture how much more maroon tissue there was than there is now.

 

[NickReef17]

I love this, impressive job! were these bought at unsuccessful lfs or personal?

 

[MechEng99]

I love this, impressive job! were these bought at unsuccessful lfs or personal?

The ones I take in come from a variety of places. Sometimes LFS get a shipment in that was delayed due to bad weather, and the corals are all near death. Sometimes LFS have been the target of chemical attacks from upset customers or whatever, so I take in those as well. Other times, corals just get stung or get pests...both in hobbyist tanks and at LFS.

 

[Kyle918]

Hey MechEng99. I bought this acan not too long ago that wasn't doing too hot but after a few days in the tank, it looked like the picture below. It continued to improve about another two weeks.



About a week later, the coral started to decline again. Eventually, I realized it was my cleaner shrimp stealing food and harassing the coral. :angryfire: I have since removed the cleaner shrimp and placed him in the sump until I take him back to a LFS.

The picture below was taken a few minutes ago. It has been two days since removing the shrimp. The coral doesn't look to be on its way up despite not being harassed. I have noticed a bit of bubble algae sprouting on the side and was going to remove the coral to clean that up and dip in CoralRx once again.



Is there anything else that I can or should do to help this coral out? All I have is some large bone cutters at the moment. I know from reading your posts that coral tend to grow new skeleton better than growing over old, jagged skeleton, which I do see since the middle has receded as much as it has. What is the best way to lesson that? Thanks man.

 

[ReefRescue]

Kyle918
How much flow do you have in the tank?
Where is the coral sitting with respect to the flow
In the picture I can't be clear if it's bleaching as well?
You said that the shrimp was harassing it. What where you feeding it?
How long has it been since it started declining?

 

[Kyle918]

Kyle918
How much flow do you have in the tank?
Where is the coral sitting with respect to the flow
In the picture I can't be clear if it's bleaching as well?
You said that the shrimp was harassing it. What where you feeding it?
How long has it been since it started declining?

I have two Tunze 6025, so around 24-27x the turnover rate taking into account the return. The coral is right in the middle of the tank and receives moderate indirect flow. It appears some of it is bleaching, but just the center most head. I cannot see the mouth of that head, just a very small side of it that still inflates a bit each day. I sometimes see a few feeding tentacles come out.

I was feeling the coral pellets and mysis. I also have reef chili. The shrimp was fed pellets and wafers and of course whatever else he found. I would say the shrimp was well fed but just figured out there is always good there. Even after the mouth was closed, he would wander over and harass the coral to open its mouth and steal the food from each polyp.

It has been declining now just going on two weeks I'd say. I realized it was the shrimp when I witnessed him do this about a week ago. Took a few days to get him out though.