help with "sick" short tentacle plate coral?
 

hello,
i've had my tank up for about 4 months now, 92g with 195W T-5. All my water parameters are good. I have a purple gorgonian, brain coral, and some zoos that are doing great. I was moving some things around and dropped a small rock that landed on the edge of the plate coral -- it closed up but actually looked ok after a few days. But it hasn't extended its tentacles since then, and now has what look like pods but tinier "bugs" hopping around all over it. I just saw it spew out some slime as well.
I'm not sure what to do? Are the "bugs" the problem? Or is it dead and they are just scavenging it? Thanks if you can help me with this.

It could be red flat worms. I'm not sure, but bugs crawling on it don't sound good. You might want to ask this question in the coral forum, you may get better results. I have heard, that depending on the species of plate coral, that they are very difficult to keep.

I wish I could help more.

Regards,

Pat

I had two short tentacle plates but I lost one after one month, this one is three months old & doing fine. Plates are hard to keep. after gobs of years this is the only one that has made it this long. I guess it might be because this is the biggest tank I've ever owned.[IMG]http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/81436orange_plate.jpg [/IMG]

I had a short tentacle plate green/purple. I got it many yrs ago.
It did great at first but after a yr or so died.
I THOUGHT lol. It layed on the bottom for a long time like a yr with me thinking it was dead and 1 day I used it as a shelf for something else.
Much to my surprise and after starting to add reef plus to my tank (not sure it that helped) but it started growing 2 baby plates.
This is a picture of it about a yr after they started to grow.

[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/kass03/948e9212.jpg[/IMG]

They grew for over a yr and sadly died again.
But guess what? Now theres about a dozen babies on that lol.
I'm not sure why it keeps dying and getting babies but if yours does die don't throw it out.
Ive read of this happening to alot of other people also.

The bugs could possibly be pods eating the dying part but not sure without knowing what they look like.
Mine never got bugs on it.

kass

That is a beautiful picture, your zoo's are too cool.

Can you move the baby plates off of the original plate?

I dunno if you can move them. Ive read of people doing that. You pop them off I was told. They grow on top of the old skeleton and are attached by a small piece of skeleton.

What happened was I never moved it or anything and the right one started going downhill so eventually I popped it off and tried putting it on the bottom of the tank but it died.
Then months later the left one started ailing and almost the whole thing died but it left little parts of it and now I have about a dozen babies that are starting to grow and do well on it.

I have had this mother (the large skeleton under it) for many yrs. I got it from Flying fish before Doc Fosters took them over so guessing like 6 yrs or so prolly longer.
It's odd that it does well and then dies and has babies.
Ive always kept it in the same tank. It's just weird lol.
When it dies none of my other corals are ailing either so it's a mystery to me.

kass