Will SPS recover after flow ripped flesh off?

Reef-on-a-mountain

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Hey reefers, I have been in the hobby for my whole life and have had salt tanks for about 5 years. I have only had LPS and soft corals (mushrooms, polyps and RBTA). This is my first montipora digitata, i got it about a month ago. I did a ton of research before getting it and read they need high flow. I placed this bubblegum digitata at the top close to the light and I put the flow right on it....that’s where I made my first mistake...after about a week I noticed some growth and got very excited! Then I got impatient and moved it closer to the light because I saw a tiny patch of algae growing on the digitata so I thought that meant it needed more light...second mistake...that’s when the digitata really started to lose flesh. I noticed it at the bottom at first, then a couple days later that bare spot was bigger. Now it’s been a couple weeks since I noticed the first spot of flesh missing and now half the frag is missing flesh, all where the flow hits it. That’s when I FINALLY moved the power head so the sps now get indirect flow. The polyps on the digitata started to come out as soon as I moved the power head but it lost a lot of color and flesh. It’s stopped losing flesh at this point and the polyps do come out a little tiny bit.
Does anyone with sps experience think it will come back? Or am I now letting it die a slow death? I don’t want my other corals to suffer either. I hate knowing that I did it to the poor thing but ripping the flesh off with flow, I’m sorry, I’m admitting i made a mistake but I would like to try and save it if possible. Any advice or input would be appreciated! (It’s the bubblegum digitata pictured top left)

16E0714C-1365-4AC7-AEDC-530BAE1AD16A.jpeg 92B006D5-B469-41B7-B84A-0E3A0A9386F3.jpeg
 
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Reef-on-a-mountain

Reef-on-a-mountain

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Update: it’s getting better already! the flesh is slowly starting to come back and I can see the polyps on the living flesh coming out more. There is even a tiny hint of bright green coming back on the growth tip. This digitata is pretty forgiving
 
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Reef-on-a-mountain

Reef-on-a-mountain

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Yea it’s one of the hardiest SPS. My kid crashed one of my tanks and the only thing that survived was the zoas and a big digiata colony. Looks cool too
Sorry to hear about your crash but good to hear there were survivors! I held SPS so high in my book that I thought they were fragile.
 

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