Will they survive? Corals saved from burned down house...

[cdness]

So A friend's house burned down approximately 2.5 weeks ago. It was a total loss, but the tank stayed standing. Today we went over to see if there was any equipment to salvage and figured we would try save the rock. When pulling it out I found the elegance coral still had flesh and the leathers were still intact. Note, this was after 2.5 weeks of no flow, no heat, no light in the coldest spring we have had here in Fargo, ND in a very long time.

So being the optimist that I am I figured why not do a test. Let's see if these corals can spring back to life after enduring such a horrible event. They are now in a 10G tank and I am slowly acclimating them to light. I see polyps on the elegance already and it seems to be "puffing" up a little. The leather is still ticked off, for good reason.

Stay tuned for pictures and a status update on the corals as I progress with this experiment.

 

[justgotwet]

Wow ---keep us updated.

 

[Zack]

That's crazy..
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[LisaD]

Wow I hope they pull through. Tough little buggers if they do.


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[Sfdanksta650]

**** specially that elegance coral, thought those were hard to keep! Good luck!

 

[VB68]

Good Luck,,,keep us updated.

 

[Squishie89]

You would be amazed at what can survive. My family experienced a house fire in 2009, we had over 2 dozen birds, 8 of which were parrots. All the birds died expect a single zebra finch. Parrots 20x his size perished when he survived. And he actually just celebrated his 8th hatchday today.
Keep us updated =)

 

[RalphsReef]

Here's to hoping they pull through.

 

[Dmmz]

Good luck hopefully they make it

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[cdness]

Yeah he had a ton of corals in the tank and we didn't expect any of them to make it, especially since we were not able to get them out until today. I ended up tossing the majority of the smaller frags as they were long gone and the toadstool leather was falling apart. He also lost his favorite coral which was a purple chalice with silver eyes, dinner plate size (If anyone has something like this I would love to know if you would spare a frag). The finger leather colony and the elegance looked like a maybe so I figured why not try.

Pics will be up tomorrow sometime.

 

[cdness]

5/5/2013 12:03 PM

5/5/2013 10:43 PM

Currently they are under a standard hood with incandescent lamp. They have been raised from approximately 40 degrees to 72 degrees for temp and the water is nice and clean. I intend on doing 5 gallon water changes on the 10G tank with seasoned water from my main reef every day or every other day. I added a piece of live rock from my main reef to the small tank to assist with the bio-load of any death that happens on the corals.

Mid-week I will switch the tank over to a basic PC light I have lying around in the garage. Since these are LPS and softies I don't see this as an issue due to lower light requirements. I didn't want to shock them too much since they came from zero light to the PC all at once...

 

[bucksfan1976]

That is absolutely amazing, Good luck...

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Awesome job saving some of them! I say those pictured are going to make it!

 

[cdness]

Still crossing fingers Rev, but I am wishing I would have paid more attention to the frag plugs that fell through the floor to the crawlspace... They may have been OK too as they were mostly LPS. However we all know colonies fare better than frags most days so maybe they were gone anyway...

I will keep updating this thread and let you all know what happens with the corals.

Big water change tonight and new lights on the tank starting tomorrow...

 

[impur]

Hope they pull thru!!

I had a buddy whose house caught fire while he was out of town. Once the fire was put out, i went over to see if I could save any of the corals and fish. All the corals were DOA but I was able to remove 5 or 6 fish that were still swimming around. The tank water was ice cold, this was winter here in Oregon, so I couldn't believe they were still alive! Water couldn't have been over 50 degrees, it was cold enough that I couldn't leave my hand in the water for more than a minute or 2. I got about 6 fish home, and attempted to acclimate them to warmer water. Unfortunately only 2 made it, but at least I saved those guys.

 

[skinz78]

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you on those corals, I think they'll make it through!

 

[mcarroll]

I'd be tempted to leave the lights off altogether (so just ambient light) if they were in darkness up to now. Prolly fine to begin a light acclimation cycle if they were already in ambient.

I'm rooting for these guys, but man that's a tough start. Best wishes to the house-owner too.

-Matt