Sick Plate Coral

[dotel]

I had a rather nice looking plate coral in my tank for roughly about two years. He never really thrived but would open up nicely and looked pretty nice. However after the great bristle worm invasion of 2003, (with joint efforts from a dragon sandsifter burying it), he got pretty bad. The flesh used to extent a little less then a centimeter past his excoskeleton. He has regressed from sickness/munching/lonleyness (i'm not 100% sure) to about 2,3 centimeters INTO his exoskeleton. He has a center mouth and a little flesh. After I replaced my lights with halides, and installed a sump and protin skimmer he plumped back up. He "appears" to be slowly growing back. If there a way I can help him out? somethign that can be added to the tank to speed up recovery? or is this possibly just a fatal illness that he will not recover from?

[Geoff]

Welcome!!!

all i can suggest is keep your water quality high and keep your calcium up to par. i do not know of anything else to help it out.

G~

[dotel]

Well things I can do short of massaging it.

[Casey]

Originally posted by dotel
Well things I can do short of massaging it.

sounds like a Jay thread

[Geoff]

Originally posted by dotel
Well things I can do short of massaging it.

Well, that did not take you long to get on Jay's unusual acclimation techniques.

G~

[balakoth]

If the tissue is receding it sounds like he's starting to lose it.

If it appears that there is an open wound, I would suggest (If brave) to try an iodine dip. Search for it on the boards as I had a plate coral once and had been suggested the same thing. Plate Corals tend to injure themselves when retracting and expanding, because of the Disc shaped skeleton they have under the tissue.

Got him up to par for a little bit, but he shortly went after that.


Just my 2 cents

Joe

[dotel]

Unfortunatly my camera won't focus properly to the back of the tank, but here is the poor guy