Reviving dead corals- odds?

DracoKat · Sep 30, 2015

How rare is it that once a coral become a skeleton for months, it'd come back?

My frogspawn and Acan died suddenly many months ago (after it was growing so well). Couldn't figure out why.. I didn't remove the skeleton since it was glued down. It was empty for months.. then all of the sudden, I see them growing back. Tiny acans and tiny frogspawn tentacles making their appearance.

I am happy they're coming back, but I never thought they would. how common is it for them to come back after being dead for so long?

Russ265 · Sep 30, 2015

DracoKat said:
How rare is it that once a coral become a skeleton for months, it'd come back?

My frogspawn and Acan died suddenly many months ago (after it was growing so well). Couldn't figure out why.. I didn't remove the skeleton since it was glued down. It was empty for months.. then all of the sudden, I see them growing back. Tiny acans and tiny frogspawn tentacles making their appearance.

I am happy they're coming back, but I never thought they would. how common is it for them to come back after being dead for so long?

all the time for me if they are lps.
sps ; not so much.

iyad_nadi · Sep 30, 2015

Interesting

Joshua Cline · Sep 30, 2015

It just depends on how "dead they really are" I have seen sps come back from almost completely browned out. You never really know. If something dies in my tank I always leave it in my tank for a few weeks. About 65% of the time I can see improvement if I can figure out why the coral is dying and fix the issue.

Rpujol85 · Sep 30, 2015

Agreed on "depends how dead it really is".

Lots of times corals can look dead but just be really bleached out.

For me, as long as the skeleton is still white, it still has a fairly decent chance.

Russ265 · Sep 30, 2015

ive had gonies covered in thick algae that came back.
it can be one lump of dead coral for 4-6 months and then a polyp will appear. they do not have to be white.

sps i have not seen do this, but lps. if they ever happen to die, go behind a hidden wall obscuring the front and sit there until they come back.

they almost always come back for me.

after 12 months, i usually give up though.

roman1 · Sep 30, 2015

And I just threw out a dead hammer coral today that was consumed by a yellow sponge .

ahammer · Oct 1, 2015

Ive had completely gone war coral come back from the grave, pretty awesome to witness.

Dtackett · Oct 1, 2015

I got a wall hammer from a friend for free. he damaged it during fragging. it slowly "died" I could see the flesh disappearing and figured it was a goner. wasn't too upset it was free and in rough condition when I got it. then just as the last of the flesh was barely hanging on to the skeleton, a tiny hammer came out. now a few weeks later the head is full and the flesh has come back. no idea what changed or why it came back but im not complaining.

Yanay · Jul 24, 2018

Any way these would come back? It’s a torch and an acan

AdamNC · Jul 24, 2018

I’ve had a Birdsnest comeback that looked like someone took a tourch to it. No idea how, I thought it was completely gone. Then little by little polyps started showing up and now that Birdsnest grows like a week in my tank. I just took a nice sized colony of it to the LFS and saved a frag off of it.

Nov 2014