Not so fast with removing dead corals

12pack

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wow what a loss forty something fish.

20 years ago I gave my 155 gallon tank away after losing everything from my tank crashing and got out of the hobby.

I just got back in and setup my 400 gallon in september and have been taking it real slow and trying to be careful.

But ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

I added a new tang and about 5 corals two weeks ago and was rushing around, I went to change my filter socks in the sump (which is in a different room in basement) and inadvertently knocked the heater probe in sump out of the water,

The probe was reading basement air temp which was 65 degrees. The next day the main 400 gallon tank was 92 degrees.

Lost most of my corals, which wasnt much. about 10 corals, The zoas, rose bubble anemone and two mushrooms lived

Lost 4 shrimp, Kole Tang, Coral Beauty, all my other fish made it.

I was devastated from my stupidity from rushing around.

43 fish and everything else? OMG I would have died,
 

drblank1

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A LFS in the 90's would buy plate corals and put them face down in the sand for a week to stress them to near death and they would spit out new plate corals like crazy after that. Corals are amazing.
What a cruel practice. I hope they are out of business.
 
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MikeyG

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My very first batch of corals 3 years ago included a 2” diameter green fungia plate. I had a heater malfunction in my QT which I didn’t catch for a week and the water was at 55of in between weekly water changes. It lost all its flesh and turned completely white in a matter of another week

I put it in my display anyway. Kinda hidden away but just sitting in the sand. 2 1/2 years later, I now have 37 fungia plates of various sizes, spawning off the original ‘dead’ skeleton

don’t throw out your dead corals, people.

9992E4C5-3F1D-4EDC-ADF4-0541FAFA8F50.jpeg
2CA8E5F9-41DC-4969-8D37-ED98EFA5054F.jpeg
Thats crazy!
 
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MikeyG

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Were they just bleached or actually dead, with bare skeleton without skin? 4 weeks seems super fast for a whole colony to be recovered, especially if there was no visible life left

But maybe you just got some super-corals lol
They may not have been dead but tissue completely stripped off.
 

Eckertsreefs

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I saw this happen myself and not to my tank but to my friends tank. He overdosed kalkwasser and smoked a torch flesh fell off within an hour. Skeleton looked completely dead with no flesh to have been seen. He left it in the tank and a month later he called me to come over he’d discovered something amazing. I went over and with a magnifying glass he showed me about 15 tiny polyps which all became small torches In about two month.
 
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MikeyG

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Were they just bleached or actually dead, with bare skeleton without skin? 4 weeks seems super fast for a whole colony to be recovered, especially if there was no visible life left

But maybe you just got some super-corals lol
100% tissue loss but they could still be alive; thus the fast bounce back.
 

pharazon

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So you’re telling me that in four weeks, the coral on the left..

- was completely dead and covered in algae
- healed and regrew all of its tissue
- got moved (obviously a different location based on pics you provided)
- grew even more skeleton, encrusted it’s new location

.. and became the coral on the right?

I hate to be that guy but I don’t buy that for a millisecond.

If you were able to accomplish that and prove it, you could sell your tank water as healing salve for acropora, or sell books about your husbandry. if you could prove it, I would buy both. But for the record, I don’t believe this story - or at least the story about this particular coral - at all.

7B7A3BF9-6D57-4571-9CB9-8F72B9389AAF.png
 

Cannedfish

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Like @pharazon above, I have a hard time believing this story. It seems highly improbable that the tissue-less skeleton could make any type of recovery, let alone, fully regain its tissue, color-up, encrust and grow in a matter of a few weeks. While it is pretty common for LPS skeletons to bud new polyps following death—I have personally experienced this phenomenon with fathead dendros, balanophylia, blastos, and fungia— citing these LPS examples as evidence bolstering the claim that acropora could fully recover from, what the OP described above as, "100% tissue loss," seems to not only be incongruent, but also a huge stretch bordering on misinformation.
 

ADAM

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My disaster was with the skimmer as well. I was removing the cup, and I dropped it. All the filth went straiht into the main tank. The fish died immediately, except for the clown. Those fish are tough.
Skimmers scare me. The same skimmer decided to overflow. Luckily my wife had just left for work, and I arrived home shortly after to the ozone smell. The water ran down the cord, and fried my power bar, burnt to a crisp. Could have lost the house.
Lesson GFIs do NOT prevent this. An Arc protector will. You can add it to select circuits or the entire home. Also Drip legs on power cords, and bar mounted higher. Lesson learned
So I have a huge concern putting a in sump skimmer in my sump on my new tank. Any suggestions?
Skimmate locker and float switch on the skimmer lid to cut operation just in case of cup overflow if an issue arises with the skimmate locker..... like you leave the shutoff valve on the cup tube closed so the skimmate can’t make it to the locker ;) yep.... been there and done it!
 

Aldrinlights

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Glad to hear that you were able to see your sticks come back! I'm hoping for the same thing right now with a green slimer I had that died off before I replaced my lighting to better PAR.
 

Freenow54

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Skimmate locker and float switch on the skimmer lid to cut operation just in case of cup overflow if an issue arises with the skimmate locker..... like you leave the shutoff valve on the cup tube closed so the skimmate can’t make it to the locker ;) yep.... been there and done it!
Appreciate the reply. Are these commercially available?
 

WizzWolfe

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Thank you SO MUCH for sharing! Think of all the corals lives you will save that may have otherwise been tossed in the bin. I have thrown out being new at corals lately that I bought and should not have. I have since learned to check and will never buy a coral that says for EXPERT level again, I felt so bad that I bought them just because they were on sale. But a couple of them smelled so bad when they died, couldn't leaving them in the tank really contaminate the water? I bought a Bloody Mary Bleeding Apple ($255!) and it died in ONE DAY. the flesh just dropped right off of it, some type of fast disease it came with. It was pure white and I thought it was just a skeleton so I left it sit thought it "looked pretty" but when I pulled it out it stunk rancid like hell!! So did that expert level orange tree when it wilted. I let it sit in there thinking it might perk up but when I took it out it stunk BAAAADDD!!! All my other corals are doing pretty well, Amaybe a separate hospital tank for corals might be a good idea. I lost ALL MY FISH a week ago but I am thinking it was my Sea Hare. And I really love that little monster so now it will be a Sea Hare and coral tank for awhile, maybe I will add just a few things that could never ever bother him. I can't imagine what could have upset him so much. I had a couple dwarf Angels, perhaps one picked at him. I just want to say I know exactly how you feel and sometimes we know exactly what happened and sometimes we try and figure out and sometimes we say what the heck just happened??
 

ADAM

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Appreciate the reply. Are these commercially available?
Several places make them and diy options galore if you have a controller. I have one made by @AVAST Marine and been extremely happy with it. One of those pieces of equipment you don’t know how you ever did without it once you have one. Many places sell the magnetic floats for mounting in the skimmer lid or a diy skimmate locker.
 

tailoftwogobies

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So you’re telling me that in four weeks, the coral on the left..

- was completely dead and covered in algae
- healed and regrew all of its tissue
- got moved (obviously a different location based on pics you provided)
- grew even more skeleton, encrusted it’s new location

.. and became the coral on the right?

I hate to be that guy but I don’t buy that for a millisecond.

If you were able to accomplish that and prove it, you could sell your tank water as healing salve for acropora, or sell books about your husbandry. if you could prove it, I would buy both. But for the record, I don’t believe this story - or at least the story about this particular coral - at all.

7B7A3BF9-6D57-4571-9CB9-8F72B9389AAF.png
so, where did the 150 gallons of water go? all over the room? also, I'm intrigued by the coral coming back to life this dramatically story.. what did you use to make this 'comeback' as seen above..
 
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MikeyG

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Wow....so sorry! This hobby has a lot of highs and lows that's for sure! Thanks for sharing though. Now I will definitely hold off on throwing out a SPS that looks rough.

Years ago I bought two Red Goni frags with blue centers. I had them glued on the same rock, and for a year they were growing nicely. Then one day they didn't extend their polyps. They sat closed for almost 3 weeks. So I was going to give up so I put it in my sump. My husband who isn't into saltwater like me....yeah I know...lol...I am the wife that wanted a hobby....he was like OMG....and he took it our and put it back in the tank. A week later out came the polyps. That was 6 years ago, and it is huge and still in my tank. Here's a pic from a while back.

IMG_20201227_144922.jpg
Pure gorgeousness.
Who deserves the credit...you or your husband
 
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MikeyG

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Ive heard claims like this in the past, but no one has ever had the "before" picture to go along with the recovered coral. Amazing!
I sm tracking another piece as well.
Its my large green frogsspawn. 100% tissue loss after the disaster.
Shortly after it was covered in algae and now its regrowing nicely from the underside.
This is strange as i would expect the side to the light to start growing back 1st.
 

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wow what a loss forty something fish.

20 years ago I gave my 155 gallon tank away after losing everything from my tank crashing and got out of the hobby.

I just got back in and setup my 400 gallon in september and have been taking it real slow and trying to be careful.

But ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

I added a new tang and about 5 corals two weeks ago and was rushing around, I went to change my filter socks in the sump (which is in a different room in basement) and inadvertently knocked the heater probe in sump out of the water,

The probe was reading basement air temp which was 65 degrees. The next day the main 400 gallon tank was 92 degrees.

Lost most of my corals, which wasnt much. about 10 corals, The zoas, rose bubble anemone and two mushrooms lived

Lost 4 shrimp, Kole Tang, Coral Beauty, all my other fish made it.

I was devastated from my stupidity from rushing around.

43 fish and everything else? OMG I would have died,
I certainly feel your pain.
I gate losing fish snd knowing this was my mistake makes it hurt that much more.
 
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