Torch coral oopsie
 

Hi Folks,

I picked up some frags from a fellow reefer to help me get started and because I wanted some practice ones before I went out and spent money.

They are all doing fine, but one of my crabs knocked the torch coral frag (2 heads) into the sand and one head sorta got buried. It happened during the night and it really wasn't happy. One head remains unaffected.

However the head that got buried, a lot of it's flesh peeled back on the skeleton (for example the healthy head has a good 1.5-2 inches of flesh down the skeleton) and only has flesh on the very top now.

It is opening and closing, but it's opening later and closing way earlier than the "healthy" head. It's also not extending quite as fully and first thing in the morning it shrivels up to like nothing.

I have been just leaving it and sorta hoping for the best.. It's not decaying or anything that I can see. Should I just leave it? What to look out for to know that it's dead?

If it continues receding its probably dead, but for the most part if there's tissue and ideal conditions it should bounce back

sounds like it should be ok. I'd secure it so it doesn't get knocked over again and it should recover.

better get some of that two part putty stuff:biggrin:

I know - I have some glue but no epoxy. I was also scared to stick it somewhere and make it "permanent"

I'm also still learning so I didn't want to stick it somewhere and then have to tear apart my rockwork or something to move one little frag.

Guess we will see what happens in the morning. I will post pictures tomorrow if it still looks bad :(

don't panic they're pretty tough!

+1 I had one that was from my 5 gallon pico that was the first coral in my big tank. It survived a temp spike in to the mid 30s, a drop in salinity down to 1.015 while I was out of town and some equipment failed, and then finally, falling inside one of my largest rock structures where it was buried by accident. I wasn't prepared to take apart the largest rock structure in the tank to rescue it, and couldn't see it, so I thought it was dead. 5 months later I saw the flash on one very pale tentacle under a rock. I rescued it, and even though it was practically white, it's now made a complete recovery.

Even if you lose one head, the other will start to branch in no time.

The "injured head" seems to have made a recovery. It has stopped shriveling up. However neither one of them are getting long and tentacly like they were at first.

I fed them some mysis shrimp and they took it.

But they look weird. I think they might be splitting or something. How long does this normally take? They look a little odd. I wish I took a pic earlier but all my pictures look navy blue (even though my tank is only about 14k colorwise. (3blueplus,1purpleplus,2coralplus)

My xenia also is doing something weird. Looks like it's growing another trunk (not sure of proper name)... and this morning I noticed a WHOLE bunch of little grasping heads on it. Why is everything going crazy on me!? LOL

Regular xenias are rated as "extremely" fast grower so no surprise ;) I have never kept the regular one but people always seem to curse how fast xenia grows. I have the pompom non-pulsing variety and that grows slowly.

Good to hear that the torch is doing good :)

Not crazy just growing,don't be surprized if your Zenia fades out to nothing.They are nutrient sinks so if everything else is healthy and your parameters are good don't waste time on it.