Will acan recover

coris · Jan 18, 2018

I didn’t think acans would attack each other but yesterday I bought a new one in “first picture” and placed it next to another I had and today I woke up to the new one half dissolved! I’ve move it away but I’m wondering what I should do, leave it or cut dead flesh off? Really a bummer

nautical_nathaniel · Jan 18, 2018

The second coral is an Acanthastrea echinata and they are known to have extremely aggressive sweeper tentacles. I would advise keeping it a good distance from any coral.

The affected acan colony can recover as long as you keep it from being stressed out too much more. Most likely the heads on the right side of the colony in the picture are going to die or be severely messed up for a while. If they all die, you can cut the dead skeleton off of the colony since it will take a long time for the coral to grow back over it.

d5332 · Jan 18, 2018

What he said...
puffy acans can be placed next to each other.
Echinata is a killer, must be placed alone.

From experience, the affected parts are dead, the polyps that seem unaffected will survive, base on the picture, the right side is dead, dont expect it to bounce back.

nautical_nathaniel said:
The second coral is an Acanthastrea echinata and they are known to have extremely aggressive sweeper tentacles. I would advise keeping it a good distance from any coral.

The affected acan colony can recover as long as you keep it from being stressed out too much more. Most likely the heads on the right side of the colony in the picture are going to die or be severely messed up for a while. If they all die, you can cut the dead skeleton off of the colony since it will take a long time for the coral to grow back over it.

coris · Jan 18, 2018

Well dang thanks for the quick replies I’ll keep it on the opposite side of the tank from now on. I’m surprised my lfs sold me both and had told me it would be fine so I’ll be paying them a visit today.

Krzydmnd · Jan 18, 2018

coris said:
Well dang thanks for the quick replies I’ll keep it on the opposite side of the tank from now on. I’m surprised my lfs sold me both and had told me it would be fine so I’ll be paying them a visit today.

Hopefully they take care of you and admit the misinformation instead of trying to put it on your tank parameters or acclimation or something. Good luck! I'm curious to hear what they do for you.