renichms Posted February 15, 2005 Share Posted February 15, 2005 The LFS had a very very bad looking open brain and, given the success I've had with my own, I thought I'd try and nurse it back to health, so they let me bring it home. It still has some color, showing up mainly under actinic lighting. Most of the rest of it has turned white and it doesn't extend any fleshy tissue at all. There are 2-3 tiny holes in it. It was kept between 2 rocks, so it slowly folded in half and is now stuck that way. Right now, it is on the bottom of one of my tanks. I fed it a tiny piece of a shrimp pellet and it ate it quite readily. Looking at it now, I can see a little soft tissue starting to come out. What would you all say are the chances of nursing it back to a full, healthy coral? RN Link to comment
Sushi Posted February 15, 2005 Share Posted February 15, 2005 i'd say your chances are good... especially if it's eating and you can see improvements just after a few hours/days in your tank, with proper lighting and a decent amount of feeding, it should be able to return to its original healthy state keep up w/the recovery efforts and within 1-2 weeks u should be seeing noticeable health improvements... good luck, keep us updated with pix!!! Link to comment
renichms Posted February 15, 2005 Author Share Posted February 15, 2005 Think it'll get its full color back then? I can't even remember what its original color was. RN Link to comment
Sushi Posted February 15, 2005 Share Posted February 15, 2005 who knows, only time will tell... like i mentioned above, just keep up with giving it a proper home and eventually it will recover (hopefully) good luck Link to comment
BKtomodachi Posted February 16, 2005 Share Posted February 16, 2005 They are tough guys, I bet with frequent feeding it should pull through. Link to comment
renichms Posted February 16, 2005 Author Share Posted February 16, 2005 What would you consider frequent? Since the tank started leaking and I moved everything from it into this one, I have easily 7-9 pounds of live rock in a 5.5 gallon with a 10 gallon HOB filter and extremely deep live sand, so a small amount of extra waste isn't an enormous concern for me since this would be temporary anyways. RN Link to comment
BKtomodachi Posted February 16, 2005 Share Posted February 16, 2005 Once every other day at least, maybe daily. Link to comment
bladze Posted February 16, 2005 Share Posted February 16, 2005 How do you feed those? The mouth is so tiny. Link to comment
renichms Posted February 16, 2005 Author Share Posted February 16, 2005 Mouths on the brain corals I've encountered are fairly large and they can actually stretch an amazing amount. I just use feeding tongs to place a piece of a shrimp pellet on the mouth and watch it open up to let the food drop in. This sick one's mouth seems to have moved far to one side since it was folded over so as to prevent it from being able to eat if it stayed in the middle. My healthy one has a huge mouth on one side and a developing, smaller mouth on the other side (big on right, small on left). I think I'll try to feed the sick one each day and the others 2-3 times per week. RN Link to comment
renichms Posted February 16, 2005 Author Share Posted February 16, 2005 My brain coral (my healthy one) isn't eating now. It seems the new setups in the tanks have no low-flow areas and the food can't sit on top of it. Any tips on creating a low-flow area in the tank? Neither tank has any extra rock that can be moved about readily right now, and powerheads are set in place. I can, however, move the filters some. Should I try buying some more small rock to block flow or something like that? RN Link to comment
Pinchy Posted February 17, 2005 Share Posted February 17, 2005 top of a soda bottle- put it right over the brain and open the cap- put food in there and vwaaaaaala! its great especially if youve got crazy shrimp taht pick at everything that smells like food. Link to comment
renichms Posted March 21, 2005 Author Share Posted March 21, 2005 The healthy brain coral is starting to bleach...it regularly expels its symbiotic algae even though it is losing color. I recently switched to metal halide lighting and have been slowly bringing the photoperiod up (less than 5 hours per day right now). Any ideas why it would do this? It fleshes out far more than ever before as well. It is on the sandy bottom, not near the light itself. Oh, and the sick brain coral is looking a lot better. It's regained most of its color and fleshes out noticably now. RN Link to comment
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