dying fungia repanda

[masterswimmer]

I'm a bit distraught about my F. Repanda. When I first got him, he was a beautiful pink with short tiny tentacles all over him. At night he'd inflate to 2 - 3 times his daytime size and send out some sweepers.

For no apparent reason he lost all color, no short tiny tentacles anymore, no inflation and no sweepers. My parameters are no different than when I first put him in. First, what could have caused this? Second, if he died on me, how do I know he's dead? It's not like he stopped breathing and is floating belly up. Third, at what point do I say he is dead and remove him? Can he foul my water?

Thanx for the help,
Russ

[FishAffair]

When tissue starts falling off I would remove it or if its pure white. ;] How long did you have it? It could have been stressed out and just took awhile to die.

[technoshaman]

If it does die do not toss it. Just get most of the dead tissue off and set it off to the side in your tank where is still gets some light. It should sprout small colonies from the dead skeleton for quite some time to come.

[Reefmedic79]

When you start seeing the tissue recede from the skeleton it has virtually no chance of surviving.

Originally posted by technoshaman
If it does die do not toss it. Just get most of the dead tissue off and set it off to the side in your tank where is still gets some light. It should sprout small colonies from the dead skeleton for quite some time to come.


It's true, one way fungia reproduces is by budding, If you start seeing the skeleton this one way that has worked well for me, place the plate up high in the tank. In a sense you want to give it a sunburn, you'll have to watch for it to start bleaching around the edges, when it does this place it back in it original place. After a month or two you should start seeing small tentacle coming from inbetween the plates skeleton. These will be baby plates.

I will say that it takes about a year for each plat to grow about 1-2" across but if you have an LFS that will take them for credit, you can make a sweet penny or 2 from one dieing coral. I've seen one 6" fungia bud upwards of 40 new corals.

[masterswimmer]

Fish, Techno, Fleet,
Thank you for your insight. So it seems the common consensus says to let it stay in the tank. I'll move him up high, cross my fingers and say a prayer.

Thanx again,
Russ

[masterswimmer]

I moved the fungia to the top for about a week. I then moved him to the bottom for about 5 days now. All of a sudden this morning I awoke to him having some pink striations. Could he be coming back to life? I sure hope so.

Russ