Long time dead corals suddenly come back to life

[Lavey29]

So I'm sure we have all had corals die in the tank. I have some long time dead corals over 2 years suddenly color up and come back to life. Cyphastrea frag plugs that I glued to the rocks. Torches nuked them. Corals bleached, then browned, then covered with algae. Now over 2 years later they are coming back strong with color again.

Anyone else have corals resurrect?

 

[edsbeaker]

Maybe I should start leaving my dead corals in the tank.

 

[BryanM]

Where's the pics?!

 

[UMALUM]

So I'm sure we have all had corals die in the tank. I have some long time dead corals over 2 years suddenly color up and come back to life. Cyphastrea frag plugs that I glued to the rocks. Torches nuked them. Corals bleached, then browned, then covered with algae. Now over 2 years later they are coming back strong with color again.

Anyone else have corals resurrect?

All the time..... to the point I think twice before chucking things.

 

[UMALUM]

Where's the pics?!

You take pics of your dead coral?
Not usually something I run to get the camera for.

 

[ninjamyst]

You take pics of your dead coral?
Not usually something I run to get the camera for.

He meant pics of the corals coming back to life =P. If I need to see dead corals, I have my own tank....

 

[Lavey29]

Where's the pics?!

If you zoom in you can see how dead they were and now color again after more then 2 years gone.

 

[MrGisonni]

I have an La Lakers Scroll Coral that was gone for all intents and purposes... I put the remains in the shade on the side on my scape and it started growing.

 

[Lavey29]

All the time..... to the point I think twice before chucking things.

What type of corals for you?

 

[UMALUM]

Dropped a boulder on this guy and it looked like a antique golf ball for months.


This grafted caddy turned solid white but was encrusted so I let it sit... glad I did.


I think I do have a pic of this piece when it went white on me.

 

[Lavey29]

Dropped a boulder on this guy and it looked like a antique golf ball for months.


This grafted caddy turned solid white but was encrusted so I let it sit... glad I did.

Awesome, I have a huge gold favia colony that the torches nuked and is covered with algae now but I'm letting it stay in the tank. No color ar all.

 

[bcmm]

I too have had corals come back, many times in fact, to the point that we never pull skeletons unless we need the space for something new. We actually have a torch coral, in a space we cannot reach, that I believe was a polyp bailout possibly (though Ive never heard of euphelia doing polyp bail out). It is just about as far away from where the dead torch was, diagonally across a 4ft wide x 6ft long peninsula tank. It just showed up as a sparkle on the rock, and grew into a fair sized colony.

 

[Justfebreezeit]

I had a hammer go completely skeleton. No sign of the polyp in it at all. About 3 months later it started to grow back and grew into 5 or 6 heads

 

[exnisstech]

If you zoom in you can see how dead they were and now color again after more then 2 years gone.

I have a similar one myself. It was on a rock covered in GHA and I took a brush to it and saw color so I popped the plug and moved it to another tank. It had been encrusted a few inches in it's prime.

 

[KrisReef]

Seems like some people don't know how to kill them like i do?

 

[AndrewE]

It happened to me a few times. I hardly ever throw coral out.

The bleaching is actually a last ditch effort to save itself. Just because it bleaches, doesn't mean it's dead. I forget the actual reason for it, but they do for after they bleach must of the time, but not always.

I had a plate die, about a year later it came back, and it spawned two other plates.

 

[SandNRocks]

Baby hammers sprouting out of a skeleton that had supposedly been dead in the back of a tank for like 6 months.

 

[Tamberav]

Yes, I have had a goni, hammer, acro, and cyphastrea come back from nothing visible. I suppose if even one tiny polyp/spec of flesh survives then it can come back.

 

[Lavey29]

So cool to hear all these survival stories.

 

[Wild1]

You take pics of your dead coral?
Not usually something I run to get the camera for.

You take pics of your dead coral?
Not usually something I run to get the camera for.