george9
Active Member
Hi everyone!
Long story short - when RTN/STN is caused by some sort of physical irritant like coral warfare or two corals touching, will it stop when the irritant is removed or does it usually continue to effect the rest of the coral?
I have a stylo that’s growing pretty quickly. Over the past couple of months, its lower portion has been crowded by zoanthids but there wasn’t any issue with STN or RTN since the coral slowly grew into the colony of zoas. Despite physically touching zoanthid polyps, the stylo skin and polyps were still open and looked just fine.
A few days ago I nudged this stylo a bit to adjust its angle and this caused a portion of the stylo that was touching the zoanthids to begin to RTN. It’s stayed localized only to the shaded areas that physically touched the zoas, but I have since elevated the stylo so it is sitting above all of the zoanthids to avoid further issues. I think when it slowly grows into the zoas it’s no issue, but the fact that I nudged the branch into the zoas led to this quick peeling.
I didn’t want to trim the dead part off for fear of further stress on the coral since I also repositioned it. Do you think the skin will continue to peel up the coral for full death or should I just leave it alone and let it recover at this point? Since I moved it, the skin has peeled off MAYBE an additional MM but it has largely stopped peeling. It hasn’t shed its skin on any areas that weren’t shaded or touching zoanthids. Anything I can do to accelerate recovery besides stable water?
(the photo in white light was immediately after I moved the coral so its polyps we’re largely closed. The stylo colony itself is looking great expect where the tissue hagan to peel)
Thanks
Long story short - when RTN/STN is caused by some sort of physical irritant like coral warfare or two corals touching, will it stop when the irritant is removed or does it usually continue to effect the rest of the coral?
I have a stylo that’s growing pretty quickly. Over the past couple of months, its lower portion has been crowded by zoanthids but there wasn’t any issue with STN or RTN since the coral slowly grew into the colony of zoas. Despite physically touching zoanthid polyps, the stylo skin and polyps were still open and looked just fine.
A few days ago I nudged this stylo a bit to adjust its angle and this caused a portion of the stylo that was touching the zoanthids to begin to RTN. It’s stayed localized only to the shaded areas that physically touched the zoas, but I have since elevated the stylo so it is sitting above all of the zoanthids to avoid further issues. I think when it slowly grows into the zoas it’s no issue, but the fact that I nudged the branch into the zoas led to this quick peeling.
I didn’t want to trim the dead part off for fear of further stress on the coral since I also repositioned it. Do you think the skin will continue to peel up the coral for full death or should I just leave it alone and let it recover at this point? Since I moved it, the skin has peeled off MAYBE an additional MM but it has largely stopped peeling. It hasn’t shed its skin on any areas that weren’t shaded or touching zoanthids. Anything I can do to accelerate recovery besides stable water?
(the photo in white light was immediately after I moved the coral so its polyps we’re largely closed. The stylo colony itself is looking great expect where the tissue hagan to peel)
Thanks
