For the complete story of how I got this thing, go Here

Pictures of the coral, and progress (if any) will be noted here at least twice a week if not more.

Tank: Biocube 14
Lighting: 12 LED Array. 6 Cree XR-E Q5 Cool White, 6 Cree XR-E Royal Blue, running at aprox 50%
Salt: Instant Ocean (old)
Flow: Stock Return Pump w/ Hydor Flo, Koralia Nano (apx. 370 gph of flow)
Salinity: 1.025 SG

pH: 8.1 during daylight
Ca: 410ppm - 460ppm (swing based on current dosing cycle)
kH: 3.2 meq/L - 3.5meq/L (swing basded on current dosing schedule)
Mg: 1300-1350 (standard dose every week)

Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate: 0ppm

Nightly feedings will be attempted and success or failure noted.


Feb 11, 2010



Feb 12, 2010



Feb 14, 2010



Feb 16, 2010



March 2, 2010



March 6, 2010



March 20, 2010

Feb 14, 2010



Some sucess feeding last night. More tentacles out sooner, still not at a full extension but much better than the fist night. Definite feeding response ( bringing food closer to the mouth)

Colour appears to be improving stilll, red coloration is filling out more and fluorescence under royal blue LEDs is much improved.

Feb, 16/ 2010



Better feeding response. Some additional green fluorescence in the red skirt - not sure if it's just getting brighter or if I hadn't noticed it thus far.

Skeleton has poked through the tissue in one area, but seems to be healing in others. Still too soon to tell.

Feb 16/2010 Update: Little sucker definitely ate it's fill tonite. VERY positive feeding response for the left-side mouth and a better response on the right-side mouth, although not fully accepting mysis yet.

From what literature I have been able to find thus far: if you can keep them eating on a regular basis, your chances increase dramatically.

best-o-luck

Part of the reason for doing this (beyond my own interest) is to provide a record of progress for others faced with similar situations.

I respect this, there are just some questions that we want answered with pics and this is certainly the case! thanks

No picture for tonite. Some of the areas around where skeleton has poked through, but not yet entirely healed, have developed brown jelly. Did a FW dip and it seems to be recovering nicely.

How is the brain coming along?

Another progress pic tomorrow, my camera went for a walk with my girlfriend

Anyway, the brain has been eating nightly, mix of both brine and mysis, usually soaked in zeocon (lipid mix).

I noted a really interesting effect of the LEDs too! A faint fluorescence preceedes visible (significant) return of the color in a particular area. I think that this particular aspect of royal blue LEDs may be a very, VERY useful in monitoring and diagnosing bleaching in the future - i'm already talking to my local dealer about this; probably going to prototype a Cree high power flashlight with a RB LED to look at some of the bleached corals he gets in so we might be able to draw some conclusions on this.

This is very inspiring. When I get better at maintaining corals...establish the know how... I will start coral rejuvenation / recouperation. I already have a hospital tank...so why not take it another step...

good job...can't wait to see more results.

Best of luck to you, I think what your doing is very cool.

Should recover fine, I got one in a group of 4 a few years back that was pretty bleached, not as bad as yours but white in the middle and pink where it should be red and it wouldn't put out feeders at all but still colored back up just with lighting alone. They also usually heal up over skeleton well, I had another that was attacked and half eaten by an acan enchinata and the flesh grew back fast. Since yours is eating I'd say you are in the clear.

Camera finally returned from it's walk...

Well, unfortunately, the exposed skeletal areas have developed some green algae, the same type that coats my glass if I don't clean it regularly.... Hoping this is not Green Boring Algae.

Anywho, it's eating regularly, some of the very small skeletal protrusions have healed up (about the size of a pencil-dot). It may just be me, but it also appears to be coloring up better.

Wow, very cool topic. I actually just picked up a brain two days ago. Colors are fine but it's not opening up or extending the feeder tentacles. Hopefully still acclimating...

First off, I'm a baaaad reefer. I bought three ~1cm-1.5cm pieces of Orange Montipora Capricornus.

Why? my saltwater guy had torn down a tank for a customer and got a beautiful colony of the stuff. Knowing that I had been looking for this very coral for a few months, he offered me the pieces that had broken off in transit at a rather steep discount. My local guy rocks. Now that I don't work for one of his competitors, I'm handing him 100% of my business for my saltwater tank.

The bleached brain is still doing fairly well, eating and so forth. No notable changes for tonite, so there will be no photo until Friday. Did a PO4 test and got a barely detectable reading back, just the faintest hint of color - time to change my phosphate media again.


Tonight's test values

Temp= 81.2*F (1*F maximum swing)

Salinity = 1.025

pH= 8.0

Ca= 380-390ppm

KH= 8.4 dKH


I've discovered (after everyting initially went Ca crazy...) that i'm using roughly 2 dKH and 40-50ppm worth of Ca in a 7 day period.

This will be monitored and controlled over the next several weeks via the use of ESV B-Ionic 2 part suppliment. Current planned dosing schedlue is 3ml of each every other day for a two week period, testing every 4 days (off-dosing day) to determine total swing up or down, with corrections starting after the first week.

2 gallon water change tomorrow, followed by tests and possibly a corrective dose of Alk and Ca.

Got my Alk and Ca stabilized, charted the Ca and Alk loss over a week and came up with a dosing schedule.

Another picture later tonite.

March 6th update.

Didn't like the photos from last night, couldn't get my WB right even in postprocessing. Here's a pretty accurate one for tonite though, little less blue to the eye, but colors are comming through better and it shows some of the faint fluorescence as I had described above.

any update?

Yep... my camera is out again until tomorrow. I'm going to try to keep to a weekly update from now on.

the tissue should grow over the skeleton in no time. same thing happened to be frogspawn and SPSs.

Photo of March 20th, 2010



Seems that it's definitely improving. The tissue is healing bit by bit, not as fast as i'd like it to, however progress is progress.

Oh, and I'll try to update tonite with more pics of my new SPS.

I now have a orange/red monti cap, branching (staghorn type) acro and a piece of green slimer.

(oh, and i'll be publishing all the pics to the first post in the thread now, so that there's an easy side-by-side for comparison.)

Picture update tomorrow (yes, I took the picture on time, but again, the camera wandered with it's memory card)

Alk? yeah... gotta watch that one. I'm now dosing 2ml ESV B-Ionic part 1 for every 800ml of topoff water (air-pump driven, battery powered ATO). This doses over the course of about 2 days.

Since this is a new routine, i missed out doing this the last 4 days, my Alk went from 9.5 to 7.0 along with the appropriate drop in Ca (roughly 450 to 390... my kit isn't that accurate)

Dosed 1.5 ml over the course of 1/2 hour to bring alk back up by almost a full point. pH only swung by aprox .1 during that time. Threw 3ml worth of suppliment into the ATO. Will re-test tomorrow evening and make further adjustments as necessary.

Ca supplimentation was a bit more lax. 4ml over the same 1/2 hour period. I shoot to keep Ca over 450 and Alk at aprox 9-9.5 dkH right now, upon the advice of my saltwater guy.