Acro recovery techniques

[BigRedReefer MT]

Good morning everybody. I have some questions about the technical aspects of trying to keep a stressed acro frag alive.

Two days ago: I noticed a white shelled snail was on my too legit. The color had faded from it's usual purple to light green on one branch, but purple at the tips and white at the base. I pulled the snail that ended up being a whelk and moved the frag to the sand bed.
Yesterday: the branch that was purple the day before had faded to light green and the other branch was even lighter green. The frag is hiding in very low light under rock work at the bottom of the tank.

Question is:
Beyond keeping everything stable, more frequent spot feeding, and limiting light received by the frag are there any other methods I should be using to try and keep this frag alive. I feed 3 times a week with reef roids. The too legit has never shown much polyp extension since it's dip in revive. It's initial 8 hour period in the sand it seemed happy but after dipping the polyps have only extended at the very tips of the branches.

 

[jda]

There is nothing else that you can do, other than leaving it alone. It can sometimes take a while for then to recover, but if there is no setbacks, then that is a good sign.

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

Alrighty then, good to know so far I'm doing what I should be. Any idea on how long I should wait before I start inching it out from my rock work? A little bit every week or should I let it go for a few weeks before I think of giving it more light.

 

[jda]

When you start to see progress... growth or better color.

It you can get a picture, you might get some better help.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Agreed. You are doing the right thing just be sure its getting some light and good flow, around 100 PAR should be fine. Once its starts coloring back up and showing good PE again you can start to move it back up.

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

Thanks for the boost guys, good to know I'm doing things right. I'll post some photos tomorrow, just got back from dinner after the kiddo's church program and lights will be out till 8.

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

Here are some photos. The more I look at it though, I can see the pin holes where polyps used to be. No visible polyps outside of the skeletal structure. I'm guessing it's dead. Anybody else see something I don't?

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

Here are a few other photos

 

[ReefEngr]

It appears to be dead, sorry

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

Yeah that's what I was thinking too. I guess I reached un unfortunate milestone today. The first addition to the boneyard.;Facepalm;Sorry
Thanks everybody for the input though.

 

[TX_Punisher]

Sure that Angel isn’t the cause? The can be nippers.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Its ok it happens to us all... next time you get an acro keep it lower and observe the color and PE (both day and night) in 1 weeks time. If the coral is happy it will have good PE. If it is suffering it usually means lack of nutrients, bad shipping or acclimation, too much lighting, or could be pest. Gradually move it close to the area it will be, I generally take 4-8 weeks to mount corals because by that time even if they where lower in the tank they are completely acclimated to the tank chemistry and adjusting to an increase of PAR is a piece of cake. I also always take dead corals and dip them in freshwater to confirm if there are any coral eating pest, then trash them. This way you can rule out pest and focus on your chemistry, acclimation, and lighting. I added few nice sps 2 weeks back and they are acclimating very well and growing being in high flow lower light areas.

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

I'm pretty sure it wasn't the angel. My other acros are sitting in the open as well and show great PE. The shortcake is four inches from where this was and it has no issues, great PE, color, and visible growth. This too legit was happy it's first day after dripping and sitting in the sand for about 8 hours. When I dipped it the PE went to almost nothing for two days. Then they popped back out but only at the very top. It's color browned a little but went back to purple after two weeks and it was encrusting the epoxy on the plug pretty quickly. It was in it's intended spot for two weeks before this with no visible issues. I found the whelk on my tooth coral lps about a month back and pulled it off. The tooth didn't seem unhappy as it's been encrusting and growing new smaller teeth almost as fast as my horn coral has been shooting out new branches.
The too legit seemed to be fine the day before but I looked and there was that whelk on one branch that was turning green and white. The other main beam was still purple. I probably should have grabbed some wire cutters and snipped it and tried to save that peice.
Oh well..... Lessons learned right??
Bone cutters, plugs, and epoxy are ordered from BRS and should be here Monday.

I'll definitely dip the skeleton though and make sure no other pests work their way out of the plug or skeleton. Thanks again everyone for your knowledge.

 

[markalot]

Did you say how you dipped it?

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

I drip acclimated over the course of an hour at 2 drops a second. Then it spent the night in my sand bed for 8 hours until the lights came on. Then I filled a Tupperware containers with 2 gallons of tank water and added 80 ml of rivive coral cleaner and let it soak for 10 minutes and using a turkey baster I gently blew the solution over the whole coral and vigorously did the same over the whole plug. Even set a timer for ten minutes so I didn't over do it. I then rinsed in a small container of tank water, just enough to cover the frag.

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

I did the same with the other frags I receiived at the time and also the other corals I had in the tank. Straight massacre on amphipods, even found one lonely small pink bristle work, but that was all that was visible.

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

The bristle work came off the chalice I received at the same time as the acros. I haven't seen any others, even after lights out.

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

Bristle worm**

 

[Dburr1014]

Personally, I have had some sps that looked dead that have come back.
I would leave it until it turns white as a sheet. You never know about these things. Give it flow and I would give it more light than it would under a rock shade. More like 150 par or so. But that's me.