Dead Acan skeleton - should be trimmed?

[dacianb]

I had a beautiful piece of acan for more than 2 years living happy in high nutrient systems (I changed the tank since i have it) until the day I decided to try SPS and I had to lower the nutrient level in my tank.
I started dosing Nopox and after few days of dosing I had a massive NO3 drop. At this moment my acan shrinked a lot and started melting away (note - other euphyllias, zoas, etc - were improving their look due to low nutrient level). Shrimps and even tangs start eating out acans fleshes coming loose.
In few days, most of heads were gone, only white skeleton remains, except few of them, where skeleton was not white, but pinkish.
Long weeks since then, my tank have now 0.0 no3 and I noticed that the pink traces of acan grows back. Looks bad (something like burned flesh scars) but looks like recovering. There is nothing I can do to help him (not even feeding as I dont see a mouth or tentacles yet), but my question is - Should I cut out the dead heads? How my coral will grow if living heads are surrounded by dead skeleton??

Here the acan during high nutrient level:

And this is how it looks today, regrowing:
Note that only 5 - 6 heads seems to recover, all other are dead. How can I trim it if necessary?

 

[Joeganja]

Well as you know acans grow their own skeleton. So if it's recovering and there's nothing wrong with the skeleton then it will be in fact faster for it to grow onto the old skeleton then produce new one. And also move the acan away from any other corals cuz it might get stung and try to keep it to the corner not getting as much light because it's in the the recovery stage and it's very stressed like you can dip it but it's so stressed it might not survive that. So I guess just hope. You can trim it with a band saw but taking it out the water is gonna stress it out.

 

[dacianb]

Well as you know acans grow their own skeleton. So if it's recovering and there's nothing wrong with the skeleton then it will be in fact faster for it to grow onto the old skeleton then produce new one. And also move the acan away from any other corals cuz it might get stung and try to keep it to the corner not getting as much light because it's in the the recovery stage and it's very stressed like you can dip it but it's so stressed it might not survive that. So I guess just hope. You can trim it with a band saw but taking it out the water is gonna stress it out.

Thank you Joeganja,
in fact I didnt knew if acans can use their "old" skeletons or need space to grow new ones. Normally that zoa doesnt belong there, I just added it after acan was practically dead to fill in the gap.
I dont think I will move it as in exactly same position died and also there reborned. But will move the zoas, for sure. Moving it may stress too. After almost 2 months of dead skeleton only, recovery is very fast - each day seems bigger and bigger . I hope will come back to normal shape

Still didnt understood what killed him and why reborned. I suspect the NO3 drop, but everything else in tank was OK. mystery....

 

[Joeganja]

What probably killed them is I see some cyano on your sand before. Some of that may have gotten on the acan.

 

[Joeganja]

I'd also like to add if your not running carbon that may also be the reason. But assuming you are, them being on the sand band makes the the cyano bacteria (aka red slime algae) due to high phosphates get a hold of the acans.

 

[dacianb]

I'd also like to add if your not running carbon that may also be the reason. But assuming you are, them being on the sand band makes the the cyano bacteria (aka red slime algae) due to high phosphates get a hold of the acans.

no... the picture was indeed taken due to aftercycle ugly tank syndrome... but the death was few months after, when everything was perfect in tank (some high nitrates, but nothing scary) - no algaes at all in this period. Sand was clean, no changes at all in tank since weeks- just starting Nopox and in 2-3 days acan vanished. 3 large euphyllias, 2 large zoa colonies and BTA doing perfect.
Yes, I am using carbon - water quality is SPS level and I have good extensions on SPS. It is weird that now reborn in basically no nutrient water.

This particular acan came from an older tank of mine (a freshwater tank weirdly adapted to saltwater) where water conditions were terrible, green forest of algae, etc, still he was growing.
Probably is sensitive to sudden NO3 changes, but can survive in murky waters if at least conditions are constant

 

[TheEngineer]

I threw a mostly dead acan frag into my current tank hoping the two polyps on it would regrow. To my surprise, there are polyps in most of the "dead" spots now. They are tiny, but they glow when the blues are on. They've been growing slowly, but steadily.

 

[Joeganja]

no... the picture was indeed taken due to aftercycle ugly tank syndrome... but the death was few months after, when everything was perfect in tank (some high nitrates, but nothing scary) - no algaes at all in this period. Sand was clean, no changes at all in tank since weeks- just starting Nopox and in 2-3 days acan vanished. 3 large euphyllias, 2 large zoa colonies and BTA doing perfect.
Yes, I am using carbon - water quality is SPS level and I have good extensions on SPS. It is weird that now reborn in basically no nutrient water.

This particular acan came from an older tank of mine (a freshwater tank weirdly adapted to saltwater) where water conditions were terrible, green forest of algae, etc, still he was growing.
Probably is sensitive to sudden NO3 changes, but can survive in murky waters if at least conditions are constant

Let me add something real quick. This is what happened. You take an acan with a very high nutrients system. Then you throw it into one with eh okay nutrients. Add some of that nopox and drop everything that level drop is what happened. They love dirty water well nutrient rich water but low nitrates and phosphates you just managed to take it all out with the nopox like you removed the phosphates but affected areas that are beyond your reach. It's like this. Your right you can have the acan in dirty water from the start but have it be constant. You throw it in okay water then clean the water up so quickly nothing is Constant and it loses its tissue

 

[dacianb]

Let me add something real quick. This is what happened. You take an acan with a very high nutrients system. Then you throw it into one with eh okay nutrients. Add some of that nopox and drop everything that level drop is what happened. They love dirty water well nutrient rich water but low nitrates and phosphates you just managed to take it all out with the nopox like you removed the phosphates but affected areas that are beyond your reach. It's like this. Your right you can have the acan in dirty water from the start but have it be constant. You throw it in okay water then clean the water up so quickly nothing is Constant and it loses its tissue

Thanks. I was just guessing, but now is clear what was the reason. Lesson learned.
Honestly i didn't expected that Nopox (similar with vodka dosing in the end, but branded by RS) will cause such a large and sudden drop. Now I have to feed corals constantly, even if I lowered the dosing to minimum, as this dosing + large oversized skimmer keeps water too clean (I was so frustrated with filter system in my previous tank, that now I went to everything oversized )

 

[dacianb]

I threw a mostly dead acan frag into my current tank hoping the two polyps on it would regrow. To my surprise, there are polyps in most of the "dead" spots now. They are tiny, but they glow when the blues are on. They've been growing slowly, but steadily.

great news... so is always a hope to recover. Great news is that I didnt started trimming out dead parts of acan and just asked . Will leave it alone and will be as nice as before I hope.