SPS Warfare Advice

[chadfish]

A small piece (~0.5 inch) of my birdsnest broke off and fell on to the mystic sunset montipora below. I didn't notice for a while, but removed the frag.

The monti was bleached in the area around the small frag, which is expected. What I didn't expect is that the monti keeps bleaching. The bleached area is getting larger by the hour.

Should I be concerned? Is there anything I can do about this? Will it continue receding until the whole coral is bleached?

Thanks for any advice or experiences you can share

 

[Chris A.]

Try supergluing the white area and a little bit of the tissue that’s still good. If the other frag rolled around on top of the monti , everywhere they touched could potentially die off.

 

[chadfish]

@dz6t The monti flesh is dying/ receding past the line of super glue I laid down.

Any other suggestions? What if I use a exacto knife to cut a “trench” in the flesh to keep the army of death and decay from advancing? Like a thick line? Would that work?

 

[MikeG]

could try fragging a piece on the outer edge of the monti off in case you lose the rest

 

[thrillreefer]

Could the initial injury have caused a bacterial infection to start? Maybe try Chemiclean treatment, or if you can move the injured coral, try another antibiotic dip in a QT tank or bucket.

 

[dz6t]

As Mike said above, the best way is to frag it at the edge. In case you loose the entire thing, I have plenty available .

 

[chadfish]

I took Dong’s advice and scored the coral 1/4-1/2” in from the dying flesh. You can see at the live/dead interface there’s about a 1/2” band of dying flesh approaching the live flesh like hurricane Irma. The super glue didnt work so I used the scalpel right down through the skeleton to the rock. It seems like the fire-break is working.

Dong has more of this Mystic Sunset, but I like this one and am attached to it since watching it grow from a small frag.

Before

After scoring

 

[chadfish]

Could the initial injury have caused a bacterial infection to start? Maybe try Chemiclean treatment, or if you can move the injured coral, try another antibiotic dip in a QT tank or bucket.

Maybe. It’s encrusted and not coming off. I can take the whole rock out, but I don’t think I have to dip the whole rock at this point. Fire-break seems to be enough