How long do you keep stunted corals around?

[Cool Beans]

For example. . .I bought a Candy Cane coral back in the winter and it was a full head and small head in the middle of splitting. . .after several months the full head was splitting in 2 and the small head had done nothing growth wise. Several months later the full head was 2 heads and the small head was receeding. . .i dipped in peroxide to kill the green algea growing around the freshly exposed skeleton, and it stopped receeding but never grew back down. After a tank misshap, I lost the 2 large heads and still had the 2 small buttons of green flesh. Almost 2 months later, they are still there not growing. . .at all. . .

 

Similar story for my hammer. It was a single large head. . .several months later it was 3 not so large heads. . .several months later it was 5 small heads. . .still splitting, but growing proportionally smaller with each split. Now it is 3 small heads after my tank misshap. . .

 

I hate to toss them, but when do you throw in the towel? Other corals in the tank are growing like weeds. . .my replacement Birds Nest has grown 1/2" in the 3 weeks I've had it. ..

 

Thanks!

[Lawnman]

Try and trade it to the LFS or give it to a beginner.

[Mariaface]

I kept my trumpet coral for months after it decided to recede. Some days it would cover its skeleton, some days it wouldn't. It was pretty painful to watch, and I'm pretty sure it was due to lack of food, an acan terrorizing it, and alk swings. I figured out the reasons why it was so pissed off, fixed them all, and kept it under the right light and fed it more often. It's bounced back since then, and I think I'll be upping feeding because it's a bit of a glutton. I'd love for it to grow more heads, it's at two. To be fair to it, it's survived a lot of my dumb mistakes (alk, dosing peroxide, letting peroxide touch it during an algae treatment kick, disturbing the sandbed like an idiot after not vacuuming for a while, etc) and has come back strong.

[jservedio]

I never throw out coral unless they have been dead a few months - if you have a fairly clean sandbed toss them in the back out of view. A seriously stressed out coral that receded to almost nothing is going to take a year or more to heal and recover in some cases. Also, corals you think are dead may not be as dead as you think and may suddenly pop back from the grave a few months later. I had a small 2 polyp frag of favia I thought was dead but left glued down and almost a year later even with other coral growing partially ontop of the dead skeleton, you can see it starting to grow out. Same thing happened with 2 chalices and an acan - dead skeleton with polyps growing out of months later.

 

I have a big pink and blue lobo that was my first nice coral that I nearly killed - it receded back to almost nothing. It took more than 2 years for that thing to grow back to even it's original size and still doesn't have it's original color and is significantly lighter. I would imagine it'll be another year or two and double in size before it's color is fully back.

[atrox]

I had a bubble coral that was completely gone due to algae growing all over its skeleton. so I threw it in my sump and a couple months later it popped out a baby.

 

[hey]

I kept my trumpet coral for months after it decided to recede. Some days it would cover its skeleton, some days it wouldn't. It was pretty painful to watch, and I'm pretty sure it was due to lack of food, an acan terrorizing it, and alk swings. I figured out the reasons why it was so pissed off, fixed them all, and kept it under the right light and fed it more often. It's bounced back since then, and I think I'll be upping feeding because it's a bit of a glutton. I'd love for it to grow more heads, it's at two. To be fair to it, it's survived a lot of my dumb mistakes (alk, dosing peroxide, letting peroxide touch it during an algae treatment kick, disturbing the sandbed like an idiot after not vacuuming for a while, etc) and has come back strong.

 

My trumpet has a wierd way of growing I discovered the other night. During the day it has 2 heads both very large and trumpety, not puffy but more conical shaped. When the lights went out I noticed each single had had 2 heads under it which I assume means it is going to split the tissue just hasn't yet. I havn't seen any other lps grow like that.

[Nano sapiens]

Corals don't really stunt because of inner biological issues as can happen with higher, complex lifeforms. Genes play a role as in all animals, but environment factors play a huge role in development.

 

When I have a difficult specimen I look at it as 'What am I doing wrong' or 'What am I not providing'. By trying different things and/or combinations thereof to get it right for that specimen, one can learn a lot and it's sweet when success is achieved.

[Cool Beans]

I try and make it best for the most animals in the tank. As it stands, of the many corals and fish doing well, just these 2 are. . .not doing anything. I'm not comfortable messing with chemistry to much for fear of harming other corals

 

Moving them out of the way never crossed my mind. . .I guess I will replace them/make room for something else and frag them down to small plugs in the sand. Hopefully they recover over time, but for now they are taking up realestate I would like to put to use.

 

Atrox, has that bubble recovered?

 

Also, i will post some pics so you can see what I'm talking about and maybe give me some pointers to look at.

 

Thanks!