how to deal with a 'gappy' wall [solid piece] coral: FYI.

[Sk8r]

I love fox coral. I took the only piece I'd seen locally in years, but it was about 6" long, wavy single strip, with one serious 1 1/2 inch gap halfway in its coverage and two other gaps about 1/2 inch.

Then I saw the real deal, a soccerball sized globe of fox, that was NOT a single wavy strip, but many strips together, so its folds cooperated with each other in gathering food.

It's a 'wall' coral, as opposed to 'heads', yes, but those gaps were killing it and preventing it feeding.

So I broke it. I scored the coral [I had plenty of room in the gap to do it this way, or I would have been more precise and used a hacksaw or dremel: believe me, this stony can be tough!]. I snapped it. The wave pattern is biologically determined, meaning if put side by side, it fits like a glove. I puttied the two bits together.

I did one other thing: it had been neatly sawn off its base, leaving its honeycomb inner structure exposed, so worms and other creatures looking for shelter and dark would go in there. I cleaned it out with a turkey baster, then puttied that sawn-off area closed for good, no way anything could get in there. I figured, hey, if it had wanted visitors, it would have grown a natural door. So I fixed that.

Set it back in my tank. It rested a few days. Then started coming out. I fed cyclopeeze daily for a week. My fish enjoyed this part.

Improvement was instantaneous. It began to extend more, one segment seeming to 'encourage' the weaker ones. Both pieces, now mated side by side, began to gather food in its folds, which now functioned like adjacent troughs. It is now actively growing more mouths, expanding to an insane extension, and I am going to have to get it a base to get it up off the sand to let it go on growing. One end of this proposition was nearly dead, only a quarter inch coming out to feed. Now that area is indistinguishable from the other. I had thought the good side would improve if freed of the weaker, but it turned out BOTH sides improved: the weaker was no longer being fed off of: there had been, deep in the stony bit, a tiny connection, which I severed.

This technique would help any 'gappy' wall coral, imho, fox, bubble, etc. You end up with two stronger corals, or you get the chance to paste them side by side to make one stronger specimen.

[otiso777]

Any before and after pics?

[Sk8r]

I don't have any befores, but imagine a mostly-retracted mess with hair algae growing on it and several bits missing.
The fox is the one on the sand dead center near the big hammer.