Rescue Corals

[jc-reef]

Originally Posted by MechEng99

JC- beautiful favia!!! Your new freebie looks like it'll be a real winner!
Rumple - I absolutely love bubble corals...especially feeding them. Great save!

Keep 'em coming! Let's give hope to those corals that normally get thrown away and decrease the demand on the ocean!!

Thanks! I was very suprised that the green/red favia came back like that. Yeah, I too am excited to see what the 'freebee' turns into....so far there are nice shades of oranges (centers) that rainbows to shades of greens (edges). It will be interesting to see what color morphs come out moving forward.

[Thrashie]

I had 2 little 1/2 dead branches of a hammer given to me from the bottom of a LFS live rock tank.

here 3 years later, it's now about 35-40 heads, bright nuclear green, and growing in 2 seperate colonies! gotta love it!

pix L8r

[ritter6788]

I've been inspired to try some more. I picked up a very light pink open brain from petco a little while ago. The tissue is all in good shape so it shouldn't be too hard to recover. Today a picked up a maze brain about 4 inches from petco for $20 instead of $54.99. It still has some nice green around the edges but looks totally gone in the middle. I'll get some pics of it up tommorrow after I get it in the tank and get time to take pics.

[ritter6788]

They had this piece on the bottom of the tank with a chunk of liverock sitting on top of it. I had to give it a shot.

[MechEng99]

ritter - nice rescue! I've found if you can remove some of that dead skeleton from the middle (just smooth it down a bit) the corals will regrow over it faster. But, you might not want to risk it this soon...no point in stressing it more. Good luck on it! Are you planning to feed it?

[CyclistMT]

Mine wasn't so much a rescue as a prayer. I got this bubble coral through mail order and I thought it was DOA. I put it in the tank anyway and it became one of my favorite pieces. By the time I had moved, it was 3 times the size in this picture.

Before:


After:

[ritter6788]

Originally Posted by MechEng99

ritter - nice rescue! I've found if you can remove some of that dead skeleton from the middle (just smooth it down a bit) the corals will regrow over it faster. But, you might not want to risk it this soon...no point in stressing it more. Good luck on it! Are you planning to feed it?

That's a good idea. I'll give it a little time to see what will come back on it's own or not and give your suggestion a try. I'm going to be feeding it once it adjusts to the tank and starts to show some signs of life. I feed all my lps at least once a week so I'll feed it will all the others soon. The other corals I posted in the earlier link are making great recoveries. Hopefully I'll have some full recovery shots of those soon.

[MammothReefer]

Don't have the best of pics, but..

In this first photo is a practically dead bubble coral. (bottom right)


Here it is healed up.


and if you kinda look to the right corner of the tank in the reflection.. it got to be at least 1' across before I sold that system

[MechEng99]

cyclist and mammoth - great bubble rescues!

[nenna]

[QUOTE=CyclistMT;17829836]Mine wasn't so much a rescue as a prayer. I got this bubble coral through mail order and I thought it was DOA. I put it in the tank anyway and it became one of my favorite pieces. By the time I had moved, it was 3 times the size in this picture.

That's impressive! Good work

[MechEng99]

Here's my latest! Any idea what it is? The left side is a brilliant gold that I can't get to pick up in the photo (just looks like a washed-out green). Anyway, I hope it keeps the gold! I'll smooth down the skeleton in a few more days...he's just starting to look a bit better.

[ritter6788]

Looks like a trachy to me. That one needs a LOT of love. Good Luck!

[kingfisher62]

Looking back into my archives I guess I do have some before and after shots of a rescue coral. Whe I first got this piece it was the size of a nickle now close to 5 inches on a good day.

[MechEng99]

Nice! Very healthy looking now!

[MechEng99]

~1 month progress:

11/9/2010


12/4/2010


I can't get the color to pick up at all right in the photo, but this one has turned absolutely amazing. It's looking like it'll be a rainbow - orange, green, purple, etc. I couldn't smooth out the dead skeleton on it as it was too brittle and was causing tissue damage.

[ritter6788]

Nice progress with that brain! I lost a red brain that I got. I thought that would be the easiest of the rescues but it croaked for some reason. My favia is looking really nice but I'm holding off on pics until it completely healed. I havn't seen much going on with the maze brain but this acan has made a full recovery if you ask me.
Before:


After:

[MechEng99]

Sorry you lost your red brain - as someone previously mentioned, "sometimes it's not meant to be". Very nice recovery on that acan! I wouldn't have recognized it!

[mc-cro]

when you say smooth out the skeleton, what exactly are you doing?

i envision a dremel with either a cutting disk or a grinding stone and just knocking all the ridges down to a smooth surface?

at what time is this appropriate? I have a brain that receded quite a bit from neglect and red slime. It is now extended feeding tentacles and eating well, and often. It has several areas that are about .25" wide, x 1" long around its rim. I am not sure I should bother the skeleton, as it is clearly recovering, although having a hard time regrowing over the dead skeleton that now has algea growing on it

[mc-cro]

double post

[MechEng99]

I don't use a dremel as I've never had good success with them - too much heat. Instead, I just take some bone cutters and cut down the sharp points and excess dead skeleton. It doesn't have to be totally smooth, but just enough that the coral tissue doesn't get ripped on a sharp point. I only remove some of the dead skeleton once the coral is on the recovery, not when I first get it unless the skeleton has algae, etc on it. I'd say 2 weeks is about ideal for many of the corals I've taken in.

My recommendation is that if you had the coral before it started receeding, and it's now healing, I wouldn't worry about the skeleton. Corals that had some trouble in your system and are doing better now have a MUCH better chance of recovering fully than ones from another system. If you're only talking 1/4" as well, I don't think that's enough to worry about either.

The scoly on the first page is a prime example to me of when to smooth down some of the skeleton. Acan's & Favia's usually don't need too much work done to the excess skeleton since their skeleton doesn't have giant spikes - it's really only important with Scoly's, Trachy's, etc.

Just my $0.02

[jenny1979]

I have rescued one coral up to now. It looked like that, when it came:


Now it looks like this

[MechEng99]

Wow Jenny, that's fantastic! Any advice on rescuing blastos? They can be tricky enough sometimes even when fully healthy, so nice save!

[jenny1979]

Thanks :-)
Actually I didn't do a lot. Placed it in middle light to start with with moderate water flow.
I do weekly water changes so water quality is ver good, I add amino acids, strontium, iron and iodine daily. Twice a week calcium, magnesium and trace elements. I feed every night just after lights out (Liquid Life Plancton by Terra Nova Pro) and every morning (Pico Liquid Food by Aqua Connect). When it started to grow I started giving it higher places with more water flow until it is at the top of the tank now in quite strong water flow. It has a Periclimenes holthuis living in it (don't ask me where THAT came from. It was just there one day).

[MechEng99]

How long between those two pictures?

[jenny1979]

About 4 months

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