Has a Coral Ever Surprised You with a Comeback?

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Ever had a coral take a turn for the worse, then recover? Maybe it arrived in rough shape, or a tank mishap set it back. It starts looking like it’s on its way out...then, if you’re lucky, you notice color, polyp extension, or new growth returning. Sometimes you get a comeback story.

Have you ever had a coral recover when you thought it might not make it?

BONUS POINTS: What coral was it, and what do you think helped? What was the first sign that things were turning around? Before-and-after photos welcome.

 

[xiaoxiy]

Very frequent (3x a week) concentrated amino acid dips seemed to save my amazeballs over the course of several months.

 

[EnterName]

Very frequent (3x a week) concentrated amino acid dips seemed to save my amazeballs over the course of several months.

What AA dip did you use and how long did you dip them?

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Very frequent (3x a week) concentrated amino acid dips seemed to save my amazeballs over the course of several months.

Wow, that really is an amazing comeback!

 

[FrozenReefer]

I had a frog spawn once completely bail with only the skeleton left. I got lazy and didn’t remove the skeleton and luckily I didn’t because a couple months later tiny little baby frogspawn started to sprout from the old base. I could have sworn that thing was 6 feet under but my zombie frogspawn is doing just great now.

 

[xiaoxiy]

What AA dip did you use and how long did you dip them?

8-10ml of AB+ in 500ml water for 30 mins. I eventually also started adding things like coral food and coral infection elimination to the dip too, but the concentrated amino acids seemed to do a majority of the work.

 

[EnterName]

What AA dip did you use and how long did you dip them?

8-10ml of AB+ in 500ml water for 30 mins. I eventually also started adding things like coral food and coral infection elimination to the dip too, but the concentrated amino acids seemed to do a majority of the work.

Interesting... I'm rather skeptical about the effect of AAs in our tanks. The only benefit I would see is a supply of nitrogen and carbon if (for whatever reason) this was limited previously. With the NO3 levels people run in their tanks usually I don't think a N limitation is too realistic... Maybe carbon? Is your tank very young or are you using a lot of activated charcoal or so?

 

[exnisstech]

I don't know the name. Also have no idea what the cause was but it isn't the first time I've experiences RTN/ STN on a single piece while everything else was fine. I removed it, cut all the dead off so it was just part of the plug covered. I placed it in a different tank and it came back.

PS
This was the only time I've been able to save a piece that was dying in this manner.

 

[xiaoxiy]

Interesting... I'm rather skeptical about the effect of AAs in our tanks. The only benefit I would see is a supply of nitrogen and carbon if (for whatever reason) this was limited previously. With the NO3 levels people run in their tanks usually I don't think a N limitation is too realistic... Maybe carbon? Is your tank very young or are you using a lot of activated charcoal or so?

I think 10ml in 500ml is a 500x the recommended concentration. I was desperate and did the dip as a last ditch effort and things started perking up within the first 24 hours after the dip.

Nope. Not new tank. I moved my four amazeballs frags to another tank when they started deteriorating due to concern of allopathy from my other gonis. They started deteriorating in my matured main system.

 

[EnterName]

I was desperate and did the dip as a last ditch effort and things started perking up within the first 24 hours after the dip.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think it was a mistake to try it! You did nothing wrong.
Why just watch something die instead of at least trying something?
I'm happy it worked out for you , but I'm interested in why it actually worked or if it was just coincidence.

 

[xiaoxiy]

Don't get me wrong, I don't think it was a mistake to try it! You did nothing wrong.
Why just watch something die instead of at least trying something?
I'm happy it worked out for you , but I'm interested in why it actually worked or if it was just coincidence.

I have no idea either. My pet theory is that in order to recover from insult/injury, some gonis just need a massive infusion of nutrients. They’re typically collected in nutrient and particulate rich areas.

I’ve had some other additional ticked goni frags bounce back with the same dip since.

Doesn’t seem to work as well/not as magical with other corals that Ive tried the dip on.

 

[mfinn]

I had a no-name favia that grew 6"-7" across in my lps tank, then one day the tissue started receding until it nearly completely white. Then for no reason it started to grow back until the skeleton was covered.




Lights finally came on so I could take a picture.
The favia I'm talking about is the green/yellow one. It's about 10" across now.

 

[KingNebTheGreat]

Other Vote: I had a bad crash of unknown causes that wiped out several coral. Among them was a fairly well grown out spicy lemon favia that survived the crash with 3 mouths that only had >1mm of flesh around them. 95% of the coral died. It managed to come back and quite quickly at that. However, the coral that came back was significantly brighter coloured with additional colours that were not prominent before.
Through what I can only describe as accidental coral eugenics, this is the before

And the after:

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

YES! This plate coral that turned into hundreds of babies!

 

[ogtumblruser]

Not really on the brink of death but I just posted a thread about coral tissue recovery & remodeling its tissue particularly in softies. And will soon post a thread about zooxanthellae recovery via contact with a healthy 'twin' counterpart. This test was just recently done on sps by scientists with excellent results. I didn't think It would work the same with softies. I'm sure it's the same with any other coral.