Biggest challenge- rescuing dying coral.

[nwkermit]

This was my birthday weekend-My family and I decided to take a quick trip down to Miami. The sun, the beach, and most of all...the amazing aquarium stores. I hit up Hydra Aquatics International, Tony's vault, and few others. Spend a decent amount of money...wife was not happy. Try to pick up my order from Cornbred, but I was told they only open Monday-Friday 3-5pm for local pickup. SMH.

There was one place that I order online from, BEC, that was the last place I went to before heading back to Orlando. They are a small store in West Palm beach area, nice people, and a decent selection. Unfortunately they just had a major crash in their tank last week, believed to be poison by an individual. They have a whole tank full of die and dying coral(almost like an elephant graveyard).

Some of them- already full skeleton and too far gone. Others slowly dying, which included tons of scolymia and chalice. If you know me, I have a total soft spot for scolymia. Between scoly and zoa, I don't know which I like more. All the scoly was in the tank that was poisoned, they are all in really bad shape.

Skeleton all showing, all the mouth open, not looking good at all...I ask how much they were, was told picking from the graveyard is $5-20. The really bad one...$5, one with some meat still... $20. I picked out the healthiest looking one( 3 of them), I think I might be able to save them and got them bagged up. But I just can't leave the other behind...so I pick up seven dying scoly for less than one normal scoly.

Took about 3.5 hours to get home. Got them out of the bag and needed to made sure all the parasites and hitchhikers are gone. Went with my favorite coral dip.

Mix it up...

15 mins later and a few water change

I was not about to put those in my 2 up and running tank...I had a 10g from Petco and extra filter pump and hooked it up. Nothing fancy, but I don't need tons of light and I didn't need tons of flow. So this setup should be fine.

Running carbon with the pump to get rid of any poison or chemical.

Here they all are in the QT.
I dose vitamin C and fuel to the water. And try to feed them, but of course no feeding response. I know this is going to be tough, but I just can't stay by and let them die.
Here is hoping I can save a few of them. I will keep everyone updated.

 

[kschweer]

Best of luck! If you only save a few you'll still be ahead of the game.

 

[bumperbeetle]

Bravo for your effort and compassion for these corals, Good Luck and keep us posted.

 

[nwkermit]

Going to do daily water change and hope for the best.

 

[maroun.c]

They don't look that bad, still if indeed they were poisonned that's a whole different game.
Feeding them surely help them recover help.
Good luck with them and looking forward for the progression shots.

 

[steve&mari]

Best of luck and hopefully you can save at least some. Stories like this of people poisoning a system are horrible. You truly must be a sick individual to do this to living creatures. Very kind of you to try and save these ones.

 

[nwkermit]

Don't know if they are trying to release sperm and reproduce under stress or just slowly rotting.

 

[Stephanie11]

I hope you can save them. Little sick to my stomach right now. I would have done the same and bought them all.