What just happened to my plate coral??

[pleuralplexus]

I've had a nice plate coral in the tank for a week tomorrow. Looked very plump and healthy until I came home from work today. When I got home, here's what I found: shrunken with black spots (I promise the dots aren't pieces of substrate). What is it and what do I do? :strange:

<a href="http://s1033.photobucket.com/albums/a416/sdwigint/?action=view&current=F0A8E752-FA36-4C82-B0FA-B53EF9941192-14635-000024F1043F77B4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1033.photobucket.com/albums/a416/sdwigint/F0A8E752-FA36-4C82-B0FA-B53EF9941192-14635-000024F1043F77B4.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos" /></a>

 

[shlesnik]

check your water parameters. Are all your other corals looking ok? Move the plate into a little lower light and possibly lower flow and see if that helps. I have that same problem occasionally with my plates.

 

[pleuralplexus]

Parameters:


SG 1.0225
Hardness 196.9 ppm*
Ca 420 Mg/L (ppm)
pH 8.2-8.4
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0

 

[googlecoral]

Nice

Nice

Good idea

 

[SushiGirl]

SG 1.0225? Is that a typo?

 

[pleuralplexus]

Hmm.. Guess I bumped a number with my fat fingers.
SG 1.022

 

[MBIETZ]

You mite want to raise your salinity to around 1.025 as far as what is wrong with your plate im not sure.

 

[jwoyshnar]

I can't keep these and I'm not sure why either. I have every other type of coral in my tank including tons of lps, some sps and pretty big leathers. Someday I would love to figure out why I can't keep these.

 

[TealCobra]

That looks like a goner.

 

[pleuralplexus]

That looks like a goner.

I can't keep these and I'm not sure why either. I have every other type of coral in my tank including tons of lps, some sps and pretty big leathers. Someday I would love to figure out why I can't keep these.

Well that's reassuring.

Hey, anybody want to buy a plate coral?

 

[philosophile]

well don't toss out the skeleton yet... sometimes after a near death experience, they in a last ditch effort, reproduce, and make hundreds of little polyps on the skeleton. So keep it in your tank for a couple of months to be sure.

 

[BigAirHarper]

well don't toss out the skeleton yet... sometimes after a near death experience, they in a last ditch effort, reproduce, and make hundreds of little polyps on the skeleton. So keep it in your tank for a couple of months to be sure.

+1
Bought a green short tentacle from a guy whose plate coral did that. Shrank to nothing, then a few months later boom, constantly producing offspring still.

 

[coralsnaked]

These guuys are notorius for not doing well in small tanks, basically they do not like captivity so they are always a chance taken. But they do well in bigger tanks on the sandbed away from other corals. No excessive waterflow, and if the the coral got bumped it could do this, as well as light shock or the sudden use of carbon and regular feeding at least once or better yet twice a week to prevent starvation.

 

[pleuralplexus]

thanks coralsnaked, It's ony been in the tank for 8 days. Today and yesterday it looks better; less dark spots, and plumping back up. What should I feed it?

 

[Ira]

I would try feeding it, my plate always looks like crap if I go too long (over a week) with out feeding it. Mine takes anything, frozen food, pellets, target fed plankton. You may want to stand by the tank while it eats too, they are slow eaters and some fish will come and steal their meal if you dont stand guard over them.

 

[bj_sweeten]

I am glad to hear its doing beeter i just bought 2 fungi plates this weekend and they came from a dead skeleton in a guys tank so if the worst happens definately leave it in there.

 

[reefmadness66]

I agree with the others who said don't give up. I had a buddy give me a purple one that he thought was dead for sure and was about the size of a nickel. With about a month and a half worth of care later, mine looked like this (about a 2 in diameter)


unfortunately a few days ago I came home to this:
but it is actually recovering quite quick. I think my frogspawn may have actually stung it so I moved the fungia and placed the frogspawn higher in the tank.

Sent from my Galaxy S2

 

[cjk76]

If it was that fast, I would suspect a predator. Shrimp or crabs?

 

[pleuralplexus]

There is a coral banded shrimp in the tank that is quite aggressive (swims around with the fish to catch food during meal time). Maybe he's been messing with the placte coral, I dont know. He is quite active at night. The shrimp just killed a very juvenile engineer goby, but since the kids are fond of it, I'm stuck with it.

The black spots are nearly gone and little tentacles are sticking out all over it. It looks hungry. I'll feed it today.

 

[cjk76]

If you see the black spots again, dip it. Otherwise, I hope it has a great recovery.

I've had a few plates look almost dead before, but they seem very willing to bounce back.