Nursing a sick sun coral back to health

[JT101]

I have been the proud owner of a beautiful sun coral for about 5 months. I have luckily been able to train it to open in the daylight. With this “under my belt” I was at a LFS the other day and noticed that the owner had a large sun coral in his coral tank. It's the size of a baseball. The bad news is, the coral looks pretty sick. Most of the “tubers” are not orange, but a light greenish-gray, and some of the insides of the tubers are almost hollow. Still, there are many others that are fairly healthy. The GOOD news is, the owner said he would give it to me for free if I bought a couple of other corals.

Is this too much of a risk?

How can you tell when a sun coral is “too far gone”?

Will I possibly damage/poison my tank if I take a shot at getting this coral?

If I DO, what’s the best way to “nurse” it back to health?

Thanks
John

[Dentoid]

John, I think this is very risky. There could be other reasons for this corals demise other than poor nutrition such as parasites, bacterial/viral infection etc. You wouldn't want to introduce any of these to your tank. If you have a hospital tank or QT tank to nurse it back, then I'd say go for it. Otherwise, leave it at the LFS and only introduce healthy specimens to your main tank.

BTW, greenish-gray means those polyps are already dead and you're seeing the skeleton. Is it possible that it's a healthy colony with a few dead polyps?

[JT101]

Originally Posted by Dentoid

John, I think this is very risky. There could be other reasons for this corals demise other than poor nutrition such as parasites, bacterial/viral infection etc. You wouldn't want to introduce any of these to your tank. If you have a hospital tank or QT tank to nurse it back, then I'd say go for it. Otherwise, leave it at the LFS and only introduce healthy specimens to your main tank.

BTW, greenish-gray means those polyps are already dead and you're seeing the skeleton. Is it possible that it's a healthy colony with a few dead polyps?

Thanks for the quick response.

Yes, I think the majority of this coral is dead going by your description, however, there are some tubers that might come back.

Can I "frag" this thing? How do I do that? Do I just snap off the "good" tubers and glue it to some LR in my tank, discarding the rest?

[Dentoid]

I've never fragged a Sun coral, but yeah that's how I would do it. You can use a clean screw driver and hammer to gently whittle away the dead poyps. Each polyp is an individual animal, just be careful not to damage the skeleton of the living polyps. Someone posted that they just dropped it on the floor to frag it! I wouldn't recommend that though.

[JT101]

Thanks Scott!

PS - Like your avatar. Looks like Herbie is a little coral fragger instead of a dentist!

[chum]

John,
I have watched LFS stores let sun corals die, by not knowing how to care for them... one store let them starve to death, I feel because they didn't feed it. Mine have a voracious appetite.
Another store had it in shallow waters with a metal hallide over it and I think it was scorched to death. The gray color just might be dead tubules from being burned by light ... I would love the chance to nurse it back to health. Isolation tank is a good idea if you have one.

[doctorthompson]

Don't frag an unhealthy coral! I'd grab the specimen and simply keep it in a quarantine setup until it recovers. Keep the system size small (10g or 20g tank would be perfect), with just live rock (from an existing system so you don't need to wait more than a few days before adding the coral). Don't bother with any sand. I'd also add a dim light on a timer just for "comfort" even though this species doesn't actually require light in any biochemical sense.

Feed the tank nightly (mysis are a good staple food for these corals) and perform frequent 25-50% water changes so the heavy feeding doesn't destroy the water quality (salt is cheaper than investing in any sort of filtration for a temporary system like this).

Once it's healthy I'd still wait about 6 months before taking a Dremel or tile saw to it for fragging.

Good luck!

[vdituri]

I have been trying to do just this thing for several months.
Mainly because I didn't realize at the time how bad off the coral was.
I've been removing the coral for intensive feedings in a deep bowl.
Letting it sit for 20 or so minutes and then returning to the tank.
That way I don't have to do major waterchanges in the display tank.r

Not sure how much this has helped. I did have 1 polyp break off the first day and it is doing the best.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[JT101]

Thanks to everyone for your help.

The coral seemed to be getting more and more sickly. NONE of the polyps have opened at all and what little light orange there was turned greyish-green. I decided to dump it.

[vdituri]

Sorry to hear that.

[JT101]

Originally Posted by vdituri

Sorry to hear that.

Well, it's OK, at least financially - remember, it was given to me for free.

I think this sunny starved to death at the LFS. I don't think this guy is feeding his corals (the ones that need to be fed, anyway).

Heck, I have zoas, brains, button polyps and of course my single sunny but I STILL feed them all with Cyclop-Eez AND mysis. They get a lot of light but it can't hurt to feed 'em manually, aside from the PITA factor.

I plan on ordering a few more HEALTHY sunnies, I aosolutely love these things! They are the brightest thing in my tank

[chum]

JT101,
Ditto on the sunnies. <viva el sol>