Care for a busted up frogspawn frag

[philagothos]

I got a frogspawn frag tonight that was pretty busted up. It has two branches and most of the skeleton on one branch was broken in several places. For now I have tied a rubberband around it to hold it together (and keep the insides from leaking out any more) and placed it in my quarentine tank. My plan is to target feed it and hope for the best. The polyps on the non-busted up side are out and looking healthy already. On the side that is fractured about 1/3 of the polyps are out and looking healthy, 1/3 are extended but not looking too good (kinda thin & stringy), and the other 1/3 are retracted but still look kinda plump.

Any suggestions? Chances of survival?

Thanks,
-Kevin

[milhouse74]

It will survive, post picks. What do you mean by leaking exactly?

Just so you know that is how you frag one of these, breaking the skeleton.

[Angela Short]

From what I visualize the way it is broke, the skeleton fractured up into the fleshy head and its oozzing its stuff? If so I would almost say cut of the fractured side because I wouldn't think it could repair its already calcified skeleton but this is just a guess :) Good luck!

[milhouse74]

Try a little super glue gel on the calcified portion of the skeneton maybe if that is the case. Hold the skeleton together tightly, and cover the break with the gel maybe?????

[philagothos]

Yea, the calcified skeleton is fractured in multiple places from the base of the skeleton all the way up into the soft tissue. For now the rubberband is holding it together fairly well (no more leaks), but I'm pretty sure that will only work as a temporary fix.

Should I try the super glue as an artificial exoskeleton? Will that work as a permanent fix? Or as Angela said just go ahead and hack that piece off? The stuff on the inside was just beginning to start coming out of the fractures when I put the rubberband around it so I don't think it lost too much of its "organs".

The batteries for my digi cam are dead so I will try to get pics later after they've recharged. Any more advice would be greatly appreciated.

-Kevin

[tuberider]

I've had that happen before due to a rockslide. Wound up with a crushed frogspawn head. I took a short length of pvc placed the head in the pvc and wrapped it with bridal veil, it remained ther for a couple of weeks in a low flow/light area to heal (bottom of tank). After that there were shards of skeleton that were randomly still attached to the flesh, at that point I used super glue repair what I could. The coral is doing fine now. Hope this helps.
Jeremy

[milhouse74]

The zillion and one uses for super glue......

[tuberider]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7844289#post7844289 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by milhouse74
The zillion and one uses for super glue......

I know they need to come out with a caulk gun sized applicator, a nice thick gel too!

[mushroom head]

I had a smashed head,elasticed it together,it healed and opened bigger than the good ones.