I have a short tentacle plate coral that I purchase almost a year ago at NSA and it has done great until recently. Several months ago I added a Diamond Goby to my tank and during his escapades developing an intricate tunnel system under my live rock, he decided it would be fun to bury half of my plate coral in sand he dug out. I didn't get the sand off in time and about 1/4 of the plate coral tissue deteriorated and died. This was about a month and a half ago and the remaining portion of the coral appears to be healthy. My question is: Will the tissue that died regenerate, or would I need to remove the dead portion of the coral or something of the such. This is a pretty decent size plate coral (about 6 inches across). Anything I can do to get this coral completely healthy again? The Diamond Goby has since settled down and doesn't burrow near as much, but he has already done his damage. On a positve note, he has done a great job of cleaning up my sand bed! Thanks for any suggestions. -Jeremy
I would not give up on it yet. If there is not algae trying to take hold on the exposed skeleton, you should be good to go. If there is some filamentous algae growing there you can clean that off, or cut out the section of exposed skeleton. The coral will grow tissue and begin to correct the gap in the skeleton.
Plate coral Thanks for the replies. The coral is doing much better in the small tank and the tissue is a lot move lively again. Stating to see the tentacles on him a night again. I've been feeding some arctic pods to this tanks and I think this is helping as well. I think this coral will recover fully in a short time.
You can feed that coral directly. If you carefully "puff" a little food (mysis, cyclopeez, etc.) directly on the coral it will get stuck in it's mucous and it will slowly bring it into it's mouth.
Corals do not typically regenerate over dead tissue, the energy expenditure to do this is to high. It is much more efficient for the coral to produce new growth. I would consider fraging the coral into sever wedge shaped sections that include some of the oral disc. The coral will then grow out to be round again in about a year. This is particularly true of fungia witch is a fast grower, depending on your tank conditions your growth rate may very. The only coral that I have seen fill in was a chalice that was suffering from high tank temperatures and low light during a month period of my chiller being out. It took about a month or more for the tissue that was spotty to fill back in. This was quite unexpected considering what I know about coral growth. Hope this helps.
Update... An update on this coral. It is doing excellent again! It's been in my little 10 ga. reef tank and is staying there for awhile since the flame angel targets this coral for some strange reason. This is the only coral he bothers. I want to cut out the 1/4 section of the skeleton that is dead so the coral will eventually close this gap as schiller street was describing. What is the best tool to use to cut a plate coral? Thanks. -Jeremy
You can use the club's lapidary saw. I have it at my house right now. If you do not feel comfortable doing it your self I could show you how.
