Sarcophyton S base turning brown

waitwut · Feb 15, 2023

New to the hobby, just added my first soft corals to a new tank around a week ago. I purchased a Sarcophyton S and a Briareum Asbestinum online, both of which opened their polyps pretty quickly after being added to the tank and seemed to have withstood the transport fairly well.

I did notice that the base of the Sarcophyton appeared to be slightly bent but didn't think too much of it, unfortunately it seems to be getting worse - it's turning brown and the whole coral seems to be sagging slightly as a result. The below photos were taken a couple days apart, you can see that it appears to be getting darker.

I'm worried this is necrotic tissue - is there anything I can do to stop it spreading? I did dip the corals before adding them to the tank.

i cant think · Feb 15, 2023

waitwut said:
New to the hobby, just added my first soft corals to a new tank around a week ago. I purchased a Sarcophyton S and a Briareum Asbestinum online, both of which opened their polyps pretty quickly after being added to the tank and seemed to have withstood the transport fairly well.

I did notice that the base of the Sarcophyton appeared to be slightly bent but didn't think too much of it, unfortunately it seems to be getting worse - it's turning brown and the whole coral seems to be sagging slightly as a result. The below photos were taken a couple days apart, you can see that it appears to be getting darker.

I'm worried this is necrotic tissue - is there anything I can do to stop it spreading? I did dip the corals before adding them to the tank.

Is it possible for you to take that coral out of the tank, put it into a pot with tank water. Then make the chop and cut to just above the ‘rotting’ part.
Then what you can do is carefully attach it to a new rock or frag plug (Can be done with an elastic band if you chop it before it gets grown over) and then put it into the tank and run carbon as it heals.