Preventing an odd event from becoming catastrophic

S

Servo

Premium Member
Here is a shot of my favorite coral. For what ever reason, I'm having a really wierd event. The base of the coral is decreasing in its concentration of zooxanthellae. The polyps are still extended but the color is diminishing without tissue sloughing. This has been occuring for the past week. It isn't an STN event because the tissue still remains. Unfortunately, there is a little bit of cyano that has attracted to the base.

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I'm going to have to cut off the coral and place it into my frag tank until it encrusts. I am going to take epoxy and place it over the base that has color changes and wait to see what happens. I hate to have to cut this off because of its current location, but it is my favorite coral and I refuse to lose it. I could always epoxy the base, but if it spreads, I'll lose more of the coral. The odd thing about all of this is that the polyps are still out.

Here is a shot from the back where the coral looks 100% healthy.

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(Edit - Image links fixed by Serk)
 
Well here is the after math. The coral head is in my prop tank. The polyps are all extended out like mad. The back portion again looks healthy as a teenager.

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Wow. Let us know how the base fares. So the top section is in your prop tank or elsewhere in your reef?
 
Ryan that's really odd. It's like a very small bleaching event. I think you did the right thing. I know it's a dumb question but what are your alk and Mg running at and have they changed lately? The only time I've ever had that happen in the past I had a fairly severe (like from 10 to 6dKh) downswing in alk over a few days.
 
Right now it is in the prop tank. Everything is fine now. The epoxy is covering up the area of question. All of the polyps are out in both the coral head and the base. Weird :!: As much as I hated to cut that up, in the long run when (if) the base grows out again and I have a Large colony of it somewhere else in the tank, I'll be very happy that I was proactive.

I've gotten burned in the past when I have had STNing events, waiting for things to get better, but they never really do unless you do something about it. :wink:
 
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Well here is the new spot for the head of the coral. Lets see how it grows. I may still move it. The base plug is now encrusting over the perimeter of the epoxy, while the portion that was cut is now baby blue. Over all, I didn't lose any of the coral and don't regret chopping it up. Unfortunately, I don't have an awe inspiring stag that is in the front, but the plug will grow in time.
 
This was informative. I am curious, why did you put epoxy on the coral? Does that stop bleaching? I have just recently jumped into SPS, so I don't know much about this type of thing.

-Chuck
 
It the past when I have had an STN event, the epoxy has stopped it from occuring. All bets are off with wild caught colonies, but with aquacutured tank raised corals, this is an option.

I've had sucess with this in 3 different coral. The first (Acropora Yongei-Bali Green Slimer) was stung by stupid green star polyps. I was nieve and didn't know that this would happen. The other two acros were spontaneous with the "3rd" documented above. I'm not sure what would have happened if I let it go, but over the prior 2 weeks, the coral began to get lighter and lighter in that spot. I have a small actinic light and it also started to lose it's fluorescence at night. That was when I decided to plug the base. Obviously, I'm really happy with the outcome and I hope that this can help others. I'll post pictures of the encrusting base over the epoxy in about a month. Right now it is just around the parameter of the epoxy. THis way you can compare it to the Dec 24th picture above.
 
@Boosted98gsx wrote:
super glue works well for attatching SPS to liverock as well. Would you be interested in parting with a small branch of that species? said:
PM me.
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