Enchinata with a hole in the middle.

[Jason Collins]

I have a large "orange" enchinata that i was told it was stung near the middle of it. The flesh is slowly dieing and the "hole" is getting bigger. What can I do to try and save it or stop the hole from getting bigger? I have dipped the coral to make sure there weren't any parasites causing it to erode away. It is not dieing off fast... we are talking the hole as gotten a couple milimeters wider after 3-4 weeks. The rest of the coral colors are great. The hole is about to expand into the my favorite part of the coral the yellow and green. I don't currently have a picture... Ill try to take one when I get home but my phone camera sucks. I'm mainly looking for ideas on what can be done to stop it. As a last resort if I took it to a fish store and had them cut part of it off that has the expanding hole in it? The whole coral is about 5-6 inches in diameter. Its my favorite coral i'm hoping i could find a way to treat it and it start to regrow back over the hole. I've also heard about an Iodine dip? Can anyone explain how I do that? Do I add Iodine to some of my tank water and dip it like coral dip or am I putting straight iodine on the coral? Any other suggestions?

I received the coral at the beginning of December with the hole in it. I did not have it get stung in my tank. I was told they believed it was stung.

I also wanted to add that I just ordered some Brightwell coral Tissue restore. Hoping that might help it out. Has anyone had experience using that chemical on corals?

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Sometimes trying to over do it can make things worse. Remember, you want to relieve the stress, not create more. IF the coral is happy, it will be able to heal.

Are you sure that it was stung? could it have been from an Alk swing? Sometimes I have found slow tissue death on shaded areas of colonies when my nutrients get to low and I have a drop in Alk. Once I corrected the problem, it regrew over the dead areas. I have not heard of many things getting stung and it taking weeks to have die off. usually stings are immediate. have you taken a turkey baster and blown on the dead area? If not, do so and check if any flat worms come off... or check the base for eggs. Hopefully its not acro eating flat worms.

I have had some success in non-acropora SPS by gluing over the dead area if I know the cause has been fixed, but the spot is still growing.

 

[Jason Collins]

Here is a picture of it from my cell phone... coloring from phone doesnt show how colorful it actually is.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Sorry I was thinking Echinata which is a species of acropora. LPS are usually hardier and it should recover I would think. I had a brain get stung and its recovered nicely. Does it look infected, like brown jelly or overly rotting tissue?

 

[Jason Collins]

No don't see any jelly

 

[Jason Collins]

Nope no jelly

 

[John3]

The iodine dip could be worth a try. It seems that dying tissue can just keep spreading and in a lot of cases I see people try to cut out the dying tissue to get ahead of it. That seems harsh especially with such a nice looking coral you have. Since you say it has kept spreading the iodine dip seems like it would be worth a try.

I just had a really nice rainbow acan go through something similar. I had a hitchhiker urchin take a bite out of the side of 1 head. I removed the urchin but the tissue slowly receded til the whole head was gone. Then the next head started to die. To make matters worse my hermits and peppermint shrimp started to pick at. I had basically given up but what I noticed was that the hermits and shrimp would only eat the dying tissue. It finally got to the point where they basically fragged off the dead tissue leaving just 1 half a head. This coral is now slowly recovering and the hermits and shrimp pay no attention to it. To me this says you need to find a way to get rid of the dying tissue to stop the spreading. Have you noticed anything eating the dying tissue?

I haven’t used the iodine dip yet but I see all the fraggers do a dip in this after cutting, so it doesn’t sound like it will make it worse.

 

[Jason Collins]

I haven't noticed anything eating the tissue. The hole just slowly gets bigger. I was debating on taking it to a local fish store and see if they could cut the section off. I don't have a band saw to do it. I have not fragged anything yet either I've only been in the hobby for a year.

 

[PedroYoung]

That's a nice looking coral. I'd be tempted to do some iodine based dip for a week or so (daily dip for 20-30 min, not leave it in dip for a week :)). See if that halts the progression. It looks like healthy tissue around the hole to me (if you are referring to the upper right hand corner in your pic). What you don't want is for some algae to grow on that rock. Most fish stores will have some form of dip (I use seachem "reef dip", but there are many good ones) and there should be simple instructions. If I have a coral that gets stung I normally do that daily for a week and don't have any adverse reactions.