Is the lobo damaged?

[KSean]

Hello!!

I received a lobo from a shipper but due to UPS delay, the package sat in their storage center for one more day before it was delivered to me.

The lobo looked okay initially but after acclimation and leaving it in the tank, I noticed under blue light that it had some bruising and some kind of jelly like strands coming out of it. Is this something normal that the lobo will recover from or is it serious?
Note: I used coral RX dip for 5 mins to remove hitchhikers (which could explain the mucus but not the bruising though).

 

[dhuynh]

Looks ok.. put in in low light and medium to low flow.. it'll open up. After a couple of days, you can try to encourage it to puff up by really light feeding.

Mine did the same thing.

 

[Auto-pilot]

It looks like it's mad from shipping and I can see some slight tissue damage as some of its "teeth" are showing through its flesh but I'd wait a while before making any conclusions on anything. Just let it acclimate and get over the stress of shipping and being dipped. If it starts looking bad and or forms an infection as some do because of damage and stress an antibiotic can be used of combat the infection as I've delt with that a couple of times.

 

[dhuynh]

I personally don't dip my new corals right away. I put them in a 10gal or 20gal with acclimated water, a heater and a pump for flow. Acclimating new coral is stressful enough. I usually do a dip 24 hours after that're acclimated to my water. Then observe and take care of pests.

 

[KSean]

You are right about the “teeth” showing up. It’s gone downhill rapidly over the night. The tissue recession got LOT worse even though it was kept in low light/low flow area on the sand bed (gravel bed to be accurate). Didn’t realize they can get this bad in just one night. :-/
Is there anything I can do? I just picked it up and kept it in a container so that I can examine better. I’ve cutoff all flow and light temporarily :-/

 

[KSean]

I live in a crammed city. Having a tank here is a luxury :) I’ve dipped every single one of my corals before with no issues. Even the other corals that came in the same shipment are okay. Except this one guy who seems to be hating the entire trip :-/

 

[Jon Fishman]

Yeah, on it’s way out. Hopefully a turn around. Looked really great when it arrived actually.

 

[KSean]

Oh that’s so sad. What could have caused this in just one night? I wanna make sure it doesn’t happen again. Is it the infection? Should I completely kill the flow? Not dip at all? Or is there anything else I’m missing here ?

 

[Auto-pilot]

He's either really stressed from shipping or he could have gotten some sort of bacterial infection due to the stress. Don't dip it! Coral dips like coral RX can stress corals out, if you think it is Infected I've treated them with Erythromycin which you can usually pick up from a LFS. When the teeth poke through it's usually because they are sucked really tight to their skeleton and when they puff up they heal pretty quickly. I've found the antibiotics to be pretty easy on corals but moving it around can stress it out more so unless you are treating it I'd just leave it alone and not mess with it so much
Does he have brown jelly on him??

 

[Jon Fishman]

They get angry and just die sometimes in my limited experience
I have a lot of stuff doing great, but I have had TWO casualties.

1) Frogspawn that I bought from my local shop right after they had some large coral die and everything else looked really bad in the tank, but the frogspawn looked kool-and-the-gang so I bought it and it lasted maybe 3 days. Was legitimately done for after 1 day

2) ordered a dozen frags from a live sale and 11 are doing awesome, but a crab knocked over the ONE coral that seemed to be slowest to “come around” which was an Aussie Lord, and I found it upside down on the sandbed. Was probably 8 hours or so. It turned white and died by the next day.

I have had great success with a lot of things, but these 2 small defeats are enough to make me very careful about buying high priced little frags. I will pay $1k for a colony, but not $100 for a bitty piece of nothing on a plug. Bigger pieces are more forgiving, you can see what is wrong and right the ship if needed

 

[KSean]

Thank you very much for the advice! I’ll be extremely careful in the future.
He doesn’t have any brown jelly coming out although when I woke up this morning he was covered in white jelly like strands coming out of pretty much every direction, looking like s***. :-/
I’ll treat him with erythromycin and leave him be. Hopefully he’ll get better. But for all practical purposes, I’m gonna consider him gone. Will update If something changed for the better!

 

[Jon Fishman]

just no matter what, leave the "Skeleton" in there for up to a couple of months..... sometimes they will just come out of seemingly nowhere and make a recovery long after you write them off for dead. There was a recent thread with someone's frogspawn or torch I think...... and I would have never guessed that this thing had a chance!

 

[KSean]

Sure thing. Will leave him be in a quiet spot and hopefully he’ll recover! Thanks for all the help! ^^

 

[Auto-pilot]

Sure thing. Will leave him be in a quiet spot and hopefully he’ll recover! Thanks for all the help! ^^

Sounds like a plan! He looks bad right now but from my experience I wouldn't just say he's going to die, the white strings are the "guts" of the coral and they come out of the coral when it's trying to defend itself. That's pretty common when they tear as it's trying to sting whatever caused the damage in the first place. When treating with antibiotics if that's what you are going to do make sure you treat for at least 10 days to make sure you don't create a super bug by allowing the bacteria to become resistant to the antibiotics. I usually place it in a Tupperware and mix half a packet of the antibiotics in before you put the coral in. I usually do this at night after the lights are out and keep it in the solution for 2-4hours

 

[KSean]

I tried soaking him for a bit in the water + antibiotics but instantly the white glue-ish stuff started pouring out of the coral within 2-3 minutes. Had to take him out right away and I have left him in a quiet corner in the tank. Smells terrible (rotting smell). Given I have a 10G pico, not sure how long I can keep him in without him polluting and crashing my tank :/

 

[Auto-pilot]

Not sure what the white stuff is without looking. The antibiotics shouldn't kill it and if its smelling it is most likely an infection. I would soak it in antibiotics and then do a quick dip in peroxide before placing it back, good luck

 

[Crisperu]

I need help. My lobo coral is not looking good. First starting coming out from the center (mouth) a white substance. After that, i moved out to the bottom of the tank. There is anything i can do to make it get better..? All my other corals look ok. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Auto-pilot]

Yea you might be able to help it. It looks like its pretty far gone at this point and alot of tissue is already gone. I would dip it for 1 minute in a 50 50 peroxide and water solution and then treat it with antibiotics.
The white stuff is just the guts of the corals. Corals expel their guts to attack other corals or pathogens that are harming them

 

[Crisperu]

Yea you might be able to help it. It looks like its pretty far gone at this point and alot of tissue is already gone. I would dip it for 1 minute in a 50 50 peroxide and water solution and then treat it with antibiotics.

Auto-pilot, where i can get the antibiotics.... ?

 

[Auto-pilot]

erythromycin works pretty well, it can usually be found at any fish store to treat fish bacterial infections. Personally I use chloramphenicol but it's hard to find