Toadstool mushroom struggling

[Anemone0524]

Hey guys

Wondering if anyone might know more about this. I've had this lovely large Sarcophyton coral and it was thriving for the first 3-5 months, but it has unfortunately been fully retracted for a while now, maybe 6-10 months. I chalked it up to their finicky nature (many people report this sort of behavior). Upon closer inspection today though, i found a sizable hole in its trunk. Sorry for the poor picture qualify.

1) Any idea what critter caused this?
2) How does one prevent this sort of thing from happening?
3) what can I do to save this coral?


Thank you

 

[julie180]

It looks like its rotting. Does the tissue flake off? If so, try a coral dip.

 

[reefshadow]

I kept several morphs of sarcophytons for years, and this happened to almost all of them at least once. They always seemed prone to bacterial infection (which is what I always suspected it was). It always started on the stalk and looked exactly like your picture. Never any explanation or precipitating factor I could identify. If I blew the crud off, there would be yellow holes underneath the rotten patches, and other sarcos in the tank would often become infected after blowing this stuff off. They are difficult to treat and I tried wide spectrum antibiotics many times, but unless you treat the whole tank (bad idea IMO) moving them out of the display only seemed to stress them worse. The best fix I ever found was just fragging them out. This I did successfully every time and a couple of times even just cut the entire cap off with scissors. I preserved a serving platter sized sarco this way. Interestingly, if I cut off the cap, then cut off the rotten part and put the rest of the "fresh" stalk in there, it would grow polyps as well and quickly grow a whole new cap without the bacterial infection spreading. If you cut it do it out of the tank. They respond well to sewing with fishing line, or if there is enough stalk left you may be able to wedge it into a hole in the rock.

Good luck whatever you decide!

 

[Anemone0524]

ok interesting! I had not thought about that. Yes the tissue is flaking off on the stalk. I guess i will get out the scissors and cut the cap off. If i cut right above the discolored areas of the stalk i should have enough stalk left to wedge it in a rock.

I will report back with the results. Thank you for your detailed response.

 

[reefshadow]

ok interesting! I had not thought about that. Yes the tissue is flaking off on the stalk. I guess i will get out the scissors and cut the cap off. If i cut right above the discolored areas of the stalk i should have enough stalk left to wedge it in a rock.

I will report back with the results. Thank you for your detailed response.

Good luck!

If you have a lot of other corals in the display it would be worth running a bit of carbon because even if you cut the sarco out of the tank it is going to release a lot of mucous once you return it.

 

[Anemone0524]

Ok so wanted to followup with the results.

I removed the sarco from the tank, and with household scissors i cut the stalk above where the bacterial infection was. Unfortunately that was most of the stalk, so there was not much for the sarco to rest on when putting it back into the tank.

I used a flat rock base, and attached the sarco with fishing wire and needlepoint. So after a month later, i can tell the sarco survived the ordeal, is healing, and i'm getting more polyp extension than before the procedure.

It'll probably take a number of months, or years, for it to get back to the same size it was before, but at least its healthy and extended.

Great advice given here. Thanks so much.

 

[reefshadow]

That's great!

Thanks so much for posting the results, it's good to know for other people looking for the same advice, and nice to hear that my good experience with this method was repeatable.