Coral eats coral...

[zhenya]

Well, almost...

I had an Acropora colony that I grew from a frag that SueT sent me some five years ago. A rather lovely coral with bright white polyps...


During my last rescaping efforts I gave the colony to the store and kept a small fragment. It started to grow nicely for me as you can see in this picture.


I woke up yesterday morning to find it face down in a frag of Echinophyllia that I got from that very store I gave the colony to. To make a long story short, when I tried to remove that acro frag it was covered in the mesenteries from the Echinophyllia.Well, at least some part of it was. I tore it away from the offending coral and remounted it... Now, a good portion of the acro appears to be devoid of tissue and I'm not sure if it will survive or not but I'm hopeful since the progress of death stopped, it seems.

Here's the pic of the offender..


And here's the victim...



I sure hope it lives becouse it seems that the store don't have any frags of it left. I guess the moral of this story would be to make sure you mount your frags really well and place it so if it does fall it is away from any agressive LPS coral or anemone.

[charlie]

Gene
That looks salvageable. You may have to frag it a bit, and maybe some gel around the rough edges, but I think you can rebuild it!!! Take heart, it didn't munch the whole thing before you found it..
Bummer that it happened, but you can definitly save a good piece of it.

[zhenya]

I left it as is for now, Charlie. The way this frag is shaped if I frag off anything there won't be much left to mount....
I'm hopeful, though, that the coral survives.

[Poseidon]

I HATE when that happens! My green hydophora had a SERIES of similar events. It has been reduced to a fraction of what it once was, partly my fault, partly I blame mexican turbos, and my spotted hawk that kept re-arrainging the poor coral- into my HAmmer, into GSP, into Yellow polyps....

I think it will be fine Gene, I know it has the advantage of a fantastic reefkeeper!

[charlie]

Hopefully the tissue recession stops Gene!!!!

[zhenya]

Hopefully the tissue recession stops Gene!!!!

Charlie, I took it out of the tank this morning and gave it a little trim to remove dead areas as much as I could( to prevent algae from growing on a dead spots). Hopefully it will recover.
Well, it;s not all bad things happening in my tank, though. I found three areas where I have Pocillopora coral polyps settle and is now trying to grow out. I removed large Pocillopora colony quite a while ago and didn't see anything remaining in the tank untill about a week ago.Of all places it settled on a locline return line and on top of the two MJ powerheads... :eek3: Oh, well...

[zhenya]

I HATE when that happens! My green hydophora had a SERIES of similar events. It has been reduced to a fraction of what it once was, partly my fault, partly I blame mexican turbos, and my spotted hawk that kept re-arrainging the poor coral- into my HAmmer, into GSP, into Yellow polyps....

I think it will be fine Gene, I know it has the advantage of a fantastic reefkeeper!

Mike,
I would think that Hydnophora would kick anybody's butt in terms of war efforts, but I guess it isn't so... Sorry to hear it took a beating.

I too have three very large mexican turbos that break branches and dislodge what I thought well mounted fragments. I will probably remove two and leave just one, although I must say they are probably the best grazers I have.

[Poseidon]

I thought so too Gene, its okay though it is starting to come around again. I had some pocilliapora a while ago and it all just bleached out a croaked, back when I tried the tropic marin salt. It is cool that is just popping up out of no where for you.

[zhenya]

Mike,

Glad to hear it's on the rebound. Posillopora and Stylophora are two of my favorite corals. I just got a small fragment of the latter from Aqurium Specialty, really nice looking coral. Unfortunately, well maybe fortunately in my case, this coral is pretty slow grower.