Beating The Odds: A Tale of A Little Coral That Wouldn't Quit

[downhill_biker]

As many of you know I had a large tank crash a few weeks ago. I examined the corals that were hit hard and when they were completely dead, with no flesh left on their skeletons, I pulled them out of the tank. I started getting quite a graveyard.

 

One of the corals, a rainbow pocillipora with 2 frags on a small rock was completely dead. I pulled it out of the tank with the rest of the corals, in the graveyard on top of the fridge. Last week I decided to put the rock back in the tank with the frags on it, because every little bit of rock helps, and that was a baseball sized rock.

 

To my amazement, I looked at the coral last night, and it is growing flesh back. It has probably 3/4" x 1/2" of flesh and polyps fully extended!!!!

 

Needless to say I have the rest of my graveyard in the sandbed hanging out.

 

I am just amazed at how tough corals are. They are sensitive to water quality, but if you have good water, they are very tough, and can bounce back from almost anything.

[Nyles]

Weird, just weird, how long was it out of water?

[downhill_biker]

Maybe a week, I dont know how to explain it, unless it had closed up in order to protect itself from the water being fouled up. The new growth is coming from within the rock, so it may have had a small pool of water in there, who knows...

[Nyles]

Being so deep in the rock it probably retained some moisture, regardless, very cool.

[dsoz]

Very cool. It is a survivor story.

 

dsoz

[downhill_biker]

It is very cool. Thanks for the comments. Never give up on your corals, they may bounce back.

[downhill_biker]

here are some pics of what has grown back so far. doesn't have the same color it did before, but i'm sure that will come back. the color used to be pink to orange to green, with orange polyps, but im just glad its alive.

 

 

[dsoz]

That first picture looks like it has an aptasia coming out from under where the polyps are.

 

But that is enough coral alive to regrow. You may want to carefully cut away the dead skeleton so it is not making shade for the living tissue. I would use a dremmel, but I would use a dremmel for almost anything.

 

dsoz

[downhill_biker]

sounds good thanks for the tips. i will look closer to see if that is aptasia. if so i will get rid of it.

 

i am fond of dremels too.

[biomekanic]

I'd just let the coral alone, and skip the dremmeling. If it's growing back, it's recieving enough light. No sense in stressing it anymore than you have to.

 

As for toughness... in The Book of Coral Propogation, vol. 1 by Anthony Calfo he talks about a fungia that died. He left the skeleton in the tank as rubble, and 6 months later it started producing daughter colonies. The "dead" coral wasn't so dead after all. As I've said elsewhere, these are some pretty tough animals.

[downhill_biker]

sounds good. it is getting light all the way around, so i guess i will leave it for now in the hopes that it will regrow over the old skeleton. thanks a lot everyone. it is so nice to have something like this bring a little life into a bad situation, and all the positive comments make it that much better.