My First Coral War

[alarmguy66]

Well, I guess it was inevitable, I just had a few corals war on each other, with me being the loser. Fist I moved one of my 2 frogspawns too close to a SSP (dont know its name). Came home the next day and the 2 had stringy white goo between them. Moved the frogspawn but it was too late, 2 days later no signs of life, just a skeleton. At the same time I noticed my pink star polyps had encroached on a finger leather. Half the leather died, the rest appears to be recovering.

I am running plenty of carbon right now, as I saw some adverse effects to some other corals, but dont know if I should do anything else.

Any chance there is some life deep in the frogspawn that might recover? The goo was only on one head, but all 3 died?

Should I break off and discard an affected head in the future? Would the other heads have a better chance of surviving?

Sorry for the loss.

Originally Posted by alarmguy66

Any chance there is some life deep in the frogspawn that might recover? The goo was only on one head, but all 3 died?

Slim in these cases. The only hope is inspect the coral branch below the crown. If you see any small "bumps" they may be new buds. If so there may be hope but don't be suprised if they also persished. When corals do battle with mesenterial filaments, there's usually little left.

Should I break off and discard an affected head in the future? Would the other heads have a better chance of surviving?

If only one branch of a colony had been affected at first, fragging off the dead/dieing would have been the best course. If left, the dieing coral head would usually develope brown jelly disease which quickly spreads to the rest.

As well as the carbon I would suggest a few good water changes with well aged/aerated SW. If you have a skimmer going that will also be a plus.

Cheers
Steve

[fishfreek]

Sorry to hear about the battle. Hopefully the aquarist general in you can redeploy your troops so as to avoid future engagements. HEHE

[alarmguy66]

Trrops have been redeployed to more strategic locations, THIS TIME I have taken into account the expansion factor of the corals during the intense lighting periods. Im just really glad I fragged that frogspawn before it got nuked.