Dead colt coral...now what?

[MikeP]

I bought a piece of LR from another canreefer. It has a colt coral on that was not doing well. I've tried to revive it with no luck. I am about to give up what should I do with it? How do I get it off the rock? I've tried to attach a pic. If you think it can be saved please tell me how. It has looked like this since I bought it just over a week ago.

Thanks

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/att...1&d=1156742095

[Beverly]

Geez, I thought is was almost impossible to kill a colt. It was one of our first corals in the 75g that we set up 8 years ago. The coral was under a pair of 175 MH and grew to fill up over a third of the tank. Finally had to trade it in to leave room for other corals to grow.

Tank conditions at that time were:

- moderate flow
- it probably ate extra food from feeding the fish
- at least having PC lighting
- didn't have a freaking clue about water chemistry then, but would think keeping alk, Ca and Mg up to snuff would be very useful

That's all I can think of at the moment. Good luck with the colt

[MikeP]

Yeah it's in pretty rough shape. I now have my PC lighting running all day. Last week I would only have the PC lighting on for a few hours in the evening because it wasn't mounted properly, but it's good now. Should I give it another week before I totally give up? And if it doesn't recover how do I remove it?

[Beverly]

Mike,

What kind of water flow is it getting? How's the alk, Ca, Mg and pH swings in the tank?

If it has now securely attached to the rock it's on and it doesn't improve over the next week or so with moderate water flow and excellent water chemistry, I would be tempted to cut it off just above the base. Doing this will remove the not-doing-well portion, but leave a base from which a new colt can grow. I've done this with xenia and devil's hands and within a month, the new corals show signs of growing back.

[MikeP]

I've pointed my powerhead right at it, so it's getting good water flow. I will have to take the water to a LFS for testing cause I don't have a kit. I have a product called coral builder that a LFS conviced me to buy. I haven't been using it for long but is it something that will help with this? Is it a good product in general for someone like me who's just keeping some soft corals and zoo's?

[Beverly]

Mike,

It needs indirect, but moderate, flow. Direct flow may be making the coral shrivel up due to all the water coming at it. HTH

Don't know anything about coral builder. It's best to have test kits on hand to do routine chemistry testing, though.