when do you declare a coral dead?

[Boaz]

I've had a couple of situations lately that surprised me. I had an RTN issue back in October. My Candy Cane looked liked it was a goner.... The last 3 weeks it started making a comeback. Still learning to take good photos. :-(

After RTN

now

Also have a birds nest that was completely covered in coraline. Today I notice some skin returning

When the RTN happened I pulled a few skeletons after a few weeks. Now I'm thinking I should have left them in the tank. When do you consider a coral dead and pull the skeleton?

 

[Dave1993]

what is RTN?

 

[Eric R.]

Rapid tissue necrosis as compared to STN which is slow tissue necrosis

 

[Boaz]

My RTN event lasted about 4-5 days. Maybe affected 6 pieces. I literally could not believe I was watching the tissue melt away so fast. Everyday I stared at the tank in disbelief. I should make that discussion a separate thread. I'm just curious how long people leave skeletons in the tank. When it seemed to be over, I thought I should pull most of the dead stuff, in case they had something like a bacterial infection or I don't know what.... In hindsight, maybe I should have left them longer. Please comment if you have a general rule, like I never pull a skeleton until 3 months has passed? Just curious, since that BN is coming back from the dead. I do understand that it could be different for various types.

 

[Alexopora]

I've had a couple of situations lately that surprised me. I had an RTN issue back in October. My Candy Cane looked liked it was a goner.... The last 3 weeks it started making a comeback. Still learning to take good photos. :-(

After RTN

now

Also have a birds nest that was completely covered in coraline. Today I notice some skin returning

When the RTN happened I pulled a few skeletons after a few weeks. Now I'm thinking I should have left them in the tank. When do you consider a coral dead and pull the skeleton?

Generally I just leave dying corals (corals that do not look good and are in real bad shape) in the tank. Except for fleshy corals like Euphyllias, because those stink real bad and I believe start to have a negative effect on other corals around due to the decomposition. And generally I can detect by the smell, if it smells rancid throw it out.

 

[Boaz]

Generally I just leave dying corals (corals that do not look good and are in real bad shape) in the tank. Except for fleshy corals like Euphyllias, because those stink real bad and I believe start to have a negative effect on other corals around due to the decomposition. And generally I can detect by the smell, if it smells rancid throw it out.

Thanks.... I like the smell test, that's a great idea!

 

[Bolek]

I had recently lost lot of SPS, mostly acro and stylo in a few days due to nutrient spike STN ... and have the same question. Your picture of birdnest looks promising amazing miraculous - after how many days/weeks did it started to recover?

I hope some of my corals could bounce back as well. How are your "dead" corals doing now - the flesh on birdnest recovering further? Did you had any acro which recovered as well?

 

[InactiveAcct]

If you suspect a contagion may be good to move to QT. But otherwise I leave in until last speck of flesh is gone.

I had a happy growing honeycomb lepto until my hammer stung it. I noticed the tiniest speck left over and moved it somewhere else, and it’s growing back, it’s about doubled in size since I moved it lol.

April 2022 prior to hammer attack


Today:

 

[Cell]

When there is no flesh left or hint of color even in heavy blues and algae starts to cover the skeleton.

 

[muzikalmatt]

It's so hard to tell what a coral can come back from sometimes. I've had zoas melt down to nothing to the point where I was about to throw out the frag only to have them completely grow back. So unless they're polluting the tank (like brown jelly or something similar), I tend to leave them alone to give them a chance to recover.

Here are a couple pics of my Sunny D zoanthids that melted out of nowhere a little over a year ago. I thought for sure they were a goner.

Here they are about two months after that "melting" event.

 

[Boaz]

My birdsnest eventually died. Other things came back well. Looking back, I think it was operator error, a nutrient spike. I was using an API test kit for nitrates and phos..... after months of zero readings for nitrates, I dosed some nitrates. When I finally bought a set of hanna checkers, my nitrates were over 40. I got them down through a series of water changes 50% over couple of weeks and light feeding, but the damage was done and I had a hard time getting nitrates out of the teens. Read 14-18 for weeks. Amazing how fast it happened. Lost about 4 Acro's.

I think another cause was the tank was not mature. It was around 5 months old at the time. I had more money than brains and patience... Definitely went into Acro's before the tank was ready.

Here's my Candy Cane at worst point, then about a week ago (not the best photo)

I also had a few Monti's survive. Can't find a picture but it lost 50% of it's flesh. Almost fully recovered now. Ironically my Zoa's spread like crazy. They must like dirty water.

August

Tank is much different now. Went bare bottom and I plumbed it to the basement sump and added a 40 gal breeder to the same sump. Water volume is double. I also bought someone's rock, fish and coral, as they were leaving the hobby. Amazing what some mature rock did for my overall stability. I need to update my build thread, so much has happened in the last 4-5 months.

Best to anyone dealing with this type of issue. It was a total pain in the you know what.

Just for fun, here's my new attempt at SPS

Bubblegum In October in the 40 gal breeder. This is one of the corals that came from fellow reefer.

And last week, encrusting nicely and starting to grow

 

[flashsmith]

I have an sps that's been dead so long I forgot what it was. Completely grown over with Coraline. I left it just to see what would happen and after months it now has 2 small yellow polyps starting to show. I recently had a birds nest the size of a softball die back. I cut the dead off and it came right back.

 

[Troylee]

My birdsnest eventually died. Other things came back well. Looking back, I think it was operator error, a nutrient spike. I was using an API test kit for nitrates and phos..... after months of zero readings for nitrates, I dosed some nitrates. When I finally bought a set of hanna checkers, my nitrates were over 40. I got them down through a series of water changes 50% over couple of weeks and light feeding, but the damage was done and I had a hard time getting nitrates out of the teens. Read 14-18 for weeks. Amazing how fast it happened. Lost about 4 Acro's.

I think another cause was the tank was not mature. It was around 5 months old at the time. I had more money than brains and patience... Definitely went into Acro's before the tank was ready.

Here's my Candy Cane at worst point, then about a week ago (not the best photo)

I also had a few Monti's survive. Can't find a picture but it lost 50% of it's flesh. Almost fully recovered now. Ironically my Zoa's spread like crazy. They must like dirty water.

August

Tank is much different now. Went bare bottom and I plumbed it to the basement sump and added a 40 gal breeder to the same sump. Water volume is double. I also bought someone's rock, fish and coral, as they were leaving the hobby. Amazing what some mature rock did for my overall stability. I need to update my build thread, so much has happened in the last 4-5 months.

Best to anyone dealing with this type of issue. It was a total pain in the you know what.

Just for fun, here's my new attempt at SPS

Bubblegum In October in the 40 gal breeder. This is one of the corals that came from fellow reefer.

And last week, encrusting nicely and starting to grow

Nitrates didn’t make your acros rtn… my tank has been all over the place mostly over 100 and the acros only changed color to a deep rich color.. most likely your alkalinity is bouncing around and caused the problems you’re seeing. Po4 won’t kill them either just stunt their growth. Keep your eye on your alk that’s the most important of all.

 

[Boaz]

Thanks @Troylee. Good to know. Maybe that spike in early August..... Not sure what happened to my data for the 16th.

.

 

[Cincyreefer513]

I have had some corals come back from the dead so it's worth keeping them in there just in case, even if it's several months.

Jack O Lantern lepto was totally grayed out and had algae growing on half of the frag. I thought it was gone, but left it in there. After a few months, it came back.

This Meteor Shower browned out and I was losing polyps. It lay dormant for a few months with just a faint orange on some of the polyps. As of the past few weeks, it's really coming back after I moved it. The Raja Rampage in the photo is also beginning to improve.

I have found with zoas that if the polyps shrink, they generally fade away over several months. I do have a few that I have hope for, but it's not looking promising.
All I can say is dinos suck, but getting some corals to recover is pretty cool to witness.

 

[Bolek]

Guys, thanks for sharing... i will leave the dead sps in and then report if/what did recover... I had PO4 spike, but also Alkalinity so probably the combination was killer