Advice for Candy Cane Coral rehabilitation

[LegalReefer]

Hey folks,

My brother recently got a large colony of injured/dying candy cane corals from a local store's "last chance/graveyard" tank, and is currently in the process of trying to baby the colony back to life. The coral had been in a display tank at the store being harassed by an angelfish for several weeks, and has been nipped at, with heads displaying damage and recession. A handful of the heads (3 or 4) are healthy and expand fully, but the rest of the heads are shriveled, with a great deal of skeleton showing.

How likely is it that this coral will be able to be rehabilitated, and what advice would people offer for the care and rehabilitation of this coral? My brother's parameters are fairly consistent, but is there a specific degree of flow or lighting that would be better for this coral's health and recovery? More light, less light, more flow, less flow? What would experienced reefers recommend?

The pics under white light are from yesterday, and under blues are from Saturday after getting the coral

 

[W0terMoist]

I am by no means an expert, a novice.

I would have the colony in the lower third of my tank, it's better for a coral to get too little light than it is to get too much. I would give it gental flow to not further agitate the damaged heads. Maybe try spot feeding the colony with your choice of coral food and or small pieces of fish food.

I had a candy cane head lose about a third of its flesh from a chalice coral sting, but it survived and split into two heads from where it healed. So they can recover from a decent amount of damage from my experience.

There isn't really much you can do except for feeding, giving proper light, and proper flow.

 

[exnisstech]

Maybe frag the undamaged heads and hope the others recover?

 

[LegalReefer]

Maybe frag the undamaged heads and hope the others recover?

Though that strikes me as a very good idea, the only undamaged heads are relatively inaccessible to frag. They're coming off the central stem and are surrounded by the injured heads, which is likely what protected them from the angelfish, but makes them inaccessible to chop on their own. They should survive regardless of what happens to other heads on the coral though, right?

 

[kevgib67]

I’m with exnisstech, I would frag the healthy heads even if it means many small colonies. I would then dip the injured heads in an iodine dip incase some bacterial infection is taking place due to the damaged tissue and help with healing. Easier to do with smaller colonies. Good luck.

 

[vetteguy53081]

While you can frag it, you can also provide moderate light and water flow and feed it mysis 2-3x per week and assure salinity and Phos does not become elevated. Mine did not look this bad but needed help and this is it now: