Down But Not Out - Coral Revival

I have recently found my answer to coral taking a turn for the worst, seemingly out of nowhere.

- Do Nothing

This has worked out for me quite well with both recent additions and long term residents that look good for awhile and then begin to either STN or wither. My experience with zoo's especially, seemed pretty hit or miss on whether or not a good looking frag in someone else's tank will survive in mine. Sometimes they have no problem, sometimes they seem to slowly melt away for reasons unknown.

The following was one zoa frag that was introduced into the tank and looked great for a week or two then slowly began to lose its rings, face started to turn grey/white and lashes seemed to droop and melt away and discolor. But at least the polyps were still open. Normally I would frag then provide a series of dips for a couple days and hope for the best. This time, I just fragged and put in the back of tank - out of sight - out of mind. Today it looks like it completely 180'd and has come back from what I thought was certain doom for sure.

This was about 1/2 way through it's total decline. Days after, these guys looked even worse and I just about gave up hope.





Weeks Later:




I attribute some of the increased decline into fragging stress. However I've noticed really great results with other SPS frags that I just don't touch at all during the STN process.

- Pink birdsnest after introduction begins to STN from the base up. Algae begins to attach to exposed skeleton and helps kill it faster. Get algae under control - did not frag - did not dip. Now it growing out and over the exposed skeleton. Doing great.

- Neon Green Hydnophora shows same signs as pink birds. STN stops and growth stops for 2 months. Think about cutting exposed skeleton, dip and reintroduce. Instead left it alone and after 2 months looks to be growing back down the skeleton and showing upward growth as well.

- Tubinara has one polyp turn black and STN process begins from center of coral out. No frag - no dip - 2 weeks later coral heals itself and looks fine.

I still have no answer to RTN and when I see it start, I usually consider the coral lost. I have no real success with frag/dip or leaving it be when the RTN process begins. If I can even catch it mid process. A lot of times I just find a white skeleton. I've had one tiny chip of an SPS coral that began to RTN actually stay alive so far. <- Radical Suggestions Welcome!

Just thought I would share some experiences. I see a lot of posts talking about a corals not looking good and what to do. This is usually followed by drastic suggestions of fragging and/or repeated dips. This method has worked for me before, however now I'm a much bigger proponent of keeping water params up to snuff and allowing the coral to fight for itself rather than inducing more stress to it. I've come to think that a lot of these corals are more resilient than we tend to give them credit for. And even hypothesize that a coral that fought back will produce even more resilient frags.

-Cheers

 

If your corals are STNing from the bottom up after a week+ of being in the tank, there's a good chance your problem is nitrates or phosphates leeching from your rock.

 

A good point indeed. I never got accurate readings on either params as I did have an algae outbreak. This tank is only temporary and each frag in the tank is attached to to a plug then either in sand/rack/or puttied to a rock. I'm hoping it will be easier to break down the tank when I move and upgrade, if everything is still on a plug rather than breaking off a rock. I do have a couple encrusting monti's - and faster growing sps that have fully encrusted the plug and grown out on the rock rapidly. The only issues I've had with bottom STN was the birdsnest after introduction and then the hydno I've had for quite awhile.

It's also important to note that my above examples consisted of relatively hardier and easier to keep sps.

I'm currently tracking two of my first enchinatas introduced two months ago. Both started showing similar bleaching and and burnt like tips after introduction and being kept in sand for lighting acclimation. I snipped tips on both and dipped only one. I subsequently lost the dipped enchinata. The other seems to have recovered but not colored up fully. It's since been raised and plug puttied to the live rock. We'll see how it does.

Maybe I'm just bad at dips :-/