Rescue Corals

[capt85]

I gotta say this thread inspired me to try my first rescue corals.

Back on 12/10 I bought a very sick elegance coral and brain (trach). The elgance didn't last more than 2 days before disintegrating in my tank. After reading on here I didn't know that the elegance was hard to keep happy even when healthy. But I learned at least.

Here is a picture of the brain a couple days in. Once there is some recovery I will post updated pics.

It has been much poofier since I have gotten it and I believe it has some more color.

Any tips would be appreciated.

 

[MechEng99]

Capt - that's an awesome rescue piece! Sorry to hear about your elegance. I've never tried to rescue one of those.

Since that trach seems pretty healed, I'd cut off most of that dead skeleton...or at least trim it down some. IME that helps it grow to a more natural shape, and the new tissue won't get damaged on the old skeleton spikes. Very beautiful piece - keep us updated!

 

[mc-cro]

Okay, so I walked into my favorite LFS today, and I saw several Lobo's that were not doing well at all, and I thought about this thread. I talked with the manager and told him I would like to work a deal on the price to see if I could rescue it. We worked out a price I could live with, I knew it wasn't going to go for free, none of them were that far gone.

So here it is fresh out of the bag, covered in sponges, bubble algae, and about about a dozen good size bristleworms. 3-4 were atleast 3" long. I pulled them and threw them in the sump as I didn't want the CoralRevive dip to kill them.

I took a toothbrush and my pick and cleaned all the algea and tube worms and stuff off the skeleton that was close the flesh. Then I took some cutters and cut down all the sharp pieces of the skeleton like mecheng said to do.

Here it is after surgery and a dip, ready to go into the tank. I have never kept a lobo before, so I am unsure of where exactly to put it. I put this one in a lower light, low flow area of my tank. I hope it colors up nice.

 

[capt85]

With my lobos low flow is more important than low light.

Just make sure the skin is not being blown against the skeleton.

 

[MechEng99]

Woooo hooo! We have another convert! Glad to hear this thread is making a tiny bit of difference...one sad coral at a time.

Mc-cro: nice find! Keep an eye on that orange/red sponge. Some sponges like that are invasive and can cause some damage to the coral...or the sponge could decay due to the treatment and release some toxins (so monitor ammonia). I think you'll be fine, but that's about the only other advice I can give. Definitely keep it in lower flow - the coral should be able to expand fully without the flow pushing the tissue against the skeleton. Lower light until the coral starts to heal up...then you can move it up a bit.

 

[Ludwigia73]

The main thing I hate is when a coral is on its way out, and the LFS still wants close to full price. I have an LFS that routinely has corals not looking so good, and I nurse them back to health quite often. I have a huge chalice, with bright orange eyes and a lime flourescent green growth ring that is just gorgeous. I also just picked up a pretty acan lord that has pale purple rings and green centers. Just starting to color up, and the polyps are just starting to fully inflate. Wish I'd taken pics!

 

[MechEng99]

Yeah, I know. Some LFS would rather sell a dying coral to a newbie and get their full profit. Had a similar situation here - a LFS had a coral fall onto a scolymia...the scolymia was mostly gone (and I doubt I could've saved it). I offered to purchase it, and the owner offered me only 10% off. Riiiight.

Check out the "Similar Thread" below by drew1 of "does anyone try to rescue corals". It's a rather depressing thread that suggests by purchasing nearly dead corals we're encouraging LFS to keep dying coral. I will argue against that til I'm blue in the face. Now, if we're paying full price, then yes, it's like paying a puppy mill full price to save a puppy. Ugh, I'll get off my soapbox.

 

[andrewk529]

Yeah, I know. Some LFS would rather sell a dying coral to a newbie and get their full profit. Had a similar situation here - a LFS had a coral fall onto a scolymia...the scolymia was mostly gone (and I doubt I could've saved it). I offered to purchase it, and the owner offered me only 10% off. Riiiight.

I had a large chalice colony fall onto my prized bleeding apple scolymia while on vacation. Needless to say, upon my arrival a week later there wasn't much left. About 85% of the coral was gone. I have been nursing it back to health the past 5 months. It has almost completely recovered.

 

[MechEng99]

We definitely need pics of that!

 

[GXPKY]

Was on it's way out when I got it, was an ugly no color plate coral 3 weeks ago with about 15 pct of it's skeleton showing, now you can barely see the skeleton along the bottom edge of the picture you can barely tell it even had the issue... The LFS guy hadn't even noticed it on the LR, when I told him I'd take the rock and see if I could rescue the fungia he was surprised when he saw it... The rock had been in their DT for months with it sitting on top. Picked up the piece of LR it's attached to for 30 bucks, had the zoanthids, and about 3 clams attached to it, thought it was a great deal. Can't wait to see what it'll color up into! Mouth is coloring up red with pink and green stripes with green tenticles.

Earlier picture...after it had covered about half of the exposed skeleton.

Picture from tonight.

 

[GXPKY]

Took a different picture under the same conditions of the other picture, you can still tell where the die off was, but it's been doing great, improved that much in only about 2-3 weeks, and has colored up a ton. (Picture 1, and 3 are both flash only, tank lights off)

 

[Scoober68]

Great thread.

Two questions:

1. Torch coral, previously very healthy, about to split, spent a bad day with a migrating condylactis anemone, and now is very sick.

The body and tentacles are deflated and limp, and it looks as though its flesh can't tolerate much flow before ripping against the skeleton. Your thread helps me know it will probably recover, but what can I do to best assist? Low flow area and target feeding? Maybe move it to the fuge? Any dips that can help?

2. GBTA, bleached when I rescued it in February, and it has slowly been eating itself. No tentacle extension whatsoever...it looks like a small marshmallow cookie. I suppose I can use some of your methods, especially feeding? Since an anemone is like a variety of coral.

For a while, target feeding seemed to help, where I actually was placing food in the mouth like you mentioned. That was difficult however and the guidance out there says not to do that. I think if I could get it back to reasonable health on target feeding, it might eventually reacquire zooanxthellae.

 

[MechEng99]

GXPKY - cool find on the fungia!

Scoober - Eh, I have zero experience with anemones. I mean, if it was bleached, then I highly suggest target feeding regularly since it doesn't contain the zooxanthallae to provide it with energy. If people say to not place food in anemone's mouths, don't do it...like I said, I have no experience with anemones. I would think that putting food near the mouth of the anemone would help it initiate a feeding response, but definitely don't force the food in.

As far as the torch goes, a picture would help determine the best course of action. If you don't think the anemone will "attack" again, you could leave it in the same spot since the torch was happy there before. At most, move to a lower-flow area and target feed. Corals that were damaged in home tanks seem to have a higher recovery rate naturally. They haven't been through shipping, dipping, new system acclimation, etc., so a bit of damage isn't as deadly as for a coral sitting in a LFS.

 

[stuifbol]

I will try to save this one i got for free from my local supplier....it still has a little pink flesh on the top...de rest is almost completely bleached but still a bit fleshy

 

[orgtizz]

How do you do this? It's amazing...

 

[orgtizz]

Any tips on how to bring a fallen head back to the land of the living? I have a branching hammer that lost two heads, that look healthy but are on the sand at the moment. What can I do?

 

[MechEng99]

stuifbol - wow, I think that's one of the worst ones I've seen. :-/ It'll mostly likely need daily feeding - there's pretty much no zooxanthallae on that one. Keep us posted...your coral is in a pretty bad spot...but not impossible!!! Best of luck!

Orgtizz - I'm assuming you mean the hammer popped two polyps out that don't have a skeleton? Unfortunately, I haven't had any success saving those (I only had an acan pop one polyp out...and it got blown around and I lost track of it.) Maybe someone else in here can chime in. If I were you (and this is me with very little experience doing this), but I'd take a piece of PVC pipe (maybe 1" tall, whatever diameter you want), and glue it to a piece of marble/granite/stone/rubble on the bottom. Put the coral head in the middle of the PVC, then cover the PVC with some bridal veil/bird netting, etc...whatever will hold the polyp in. That will prevent the coral polyp from floating around your tank, but will still allow flow/light/food to reach it. Just an idea.

Well, I got two new rescues today - a pink lobo and a purple lobo of some description. They're both in pretty good shape; something stung the other sides, so what I kept was in excellent health. I'll try to get some pics tomorrow. I'm also thinking about going on a drive tomorrow to a not-so-local fish store that is known for having a ton of "rescues".

Everyone - this is awesome! I'm really enjoying seeing so many people try to save corals that would otherwise be thrown out. Keep the stories & photos coming...and encourage others to do the same! If we can figure out how to save corals that are literally on the brink of death, then we can figure out how to keep corals healthy & thriving in home aquariums.

 

[salt0727]

any tips on rescuing a fox coral? It is pretty much gone but has some tissue left.

 

[MechEng99]

Salt - could you post a picture? Knowing exactly how much tissue & where it's left would help in giving you advice. What was the damage caused by?

 

[breakdanc3]

my duncan

my duncan

its a recovery of a duncan coral from my own poor reef keeping practices (overfeeding,using tap water, poor skimmer, hardly any water changes) .. improvement like this encouraged me keep it up.

<a href="http://s442.photobucket.com/albums/qq141/breakdanc3/?action=view&current=duncanRecover.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq141/breakdanc3/duncanRecover.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>