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FAQs about Fungiid Coral Health/Disease 2
Related Articles:
Coral Pests and Disease; pests, predators, diseases and conditions
by Sara Mavinkurve, Fungiid Corals,
Related FAQs: Fungiid Disease 1,
Fungiid Disease 3, Fungiid Disease 4,
& Coral Disease,
Fungiid Corals 1, Fungiid Corals 2, Fungiid
Identification, Fungiid Behavior,
Fungiid Compatibility, Fungiid
Selection, Fungiid Systems,
Fungiid Feeding, Fungiid
Reproduction, Stony/True Coral,
Coral System Set-Up, Coral System
Lighting, Stony Coral Identification,
Stony Coral Selection, Coral Placement,
Foods/Feeding/Nutrition,
Disease/Health, Propagation,
Growing Reef Corals, Stony
Coral Behavior, | .jpg)
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Sick Fungia -02/25/08
Hi. I hope you can help me.
<me too>
I picked up a small orange plate coral (Fungia) about three days
ago. I drip acclimated as I normally do any coral I get. The first
night, he seemed as happy as a clam. Mouth was visible and his tiny
little tentacles were extended. Sometime in the night, something
horrible happened. Something in my tank seems to have snacked on
him.
<Hmm... no, looks like tissue recession to me.>
It is
missing tissue that was fine when the lights went off. My GUESS is a
peppermint shrimp.
<not likely>
I also have some blue leg
hermits and snails. As far as fish, I only have a couple bar gobies,
a canary wrasse and a Firefish.
After I found him the next day, I
quarantined it in the tank so nothing can get to it. It's now in a
slotted breeder box (with sand in the bottom) held in the middle of
the tank by a magnet scraper (feel free to laugh, but its working).
It's little tentacles still extend, except for the part where the
flesh is injured. I have given it a small piece of Mysis to see if
it would still react to it, and it grabbed hold and pulled it slowly
towards its mouth. However, his mouth is not visible. By that I
mean, it's wide open. Maybe looking at a picture of it would help
(see attached jpeg). That is actually a piece of Mysis he has in the
'mouth' (the black dot is a Mysis eye I believe).
<It looks like,
maybe, the mouth is just very, very retracted.>
Should I keep
spot feeding this guy every couple days to see if he comes back
around?
<Yes>
Do you think there is a snowballs chance he'll
make it??
<Oh yeah, sure there is. Though these corals are not
necessarily easy to keep, they are capable of some remarkable
recoveries. And your coral is not in all that bad a shape. It's
struggling for sure, but it's far from doomed.>
(in the photo,
the missing tissue is towards the edge of the top left)
:-(
-wuf
<Good luck,
Sara M.>
Re: sick Fungia... shrimp bothering 3/2/08
Thank you
for your response on my stressed out/damaged Fungia. However, after
several days of it recouping in a segregated box, I have to
respectfully disagree with your conclusion. Here is why (if you are
interested):
After keeping the plate coral in a separate
container in the tank and spot feeding it, it came back to it's
'normal self'. It was polyping out fully and the mouth was no longer
gaping. Not 2 hours after I placed it back in the bottom of the
tank, I found TWO peppermint shrimp sitting on top of it picking at
it. Of course, all tentacles were pulled back in and the mouth was
starting to gape. I immediately pulled it out and put it back into
it's separate area. I also found the peppermints harassing my tongue
coral.
That being said, I believe that peppermints can be more of
a nuisance to these LPS's than some would like to believe.
<Hmmm,
I must not have been very articulate with what I was saying before.
I didn't mean to say that these shrimp can't be a nuisance to these
corals. Rather, I mean to say that it's unlikely that they are
actually *eating* the coral. However, there are plenty of other ways
they can be a nuisance. They can steal food (even from out of the
mouths of the corals). They might also be picking at the coral's
mucus. Even just their "standing" on the coral can cause the coral
to retract and be stressed (as you've seen).>
Just my 2
cents......
<Thank you for the update. Great to hear your coral
is doing better!
Best,
Sara M.> | 
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Long Tentacle Plate Coral - Green Patches
9/4/07
Hey Guys, fantastic website.
<thank you>
Only found
it a couple of months ago but has already been a big insight with many
questions answered. Although there are two questions I have not seem to
find the answer to. I have a LT Plate Coral which has four main
calcareous structures one in the middle and three evenly round the
outside, this was brought attached to a small rock about the same size
in diameter.
<Without a picture, it sounds like this coral once had
a significant dying-off episode and has since recovered (leaving behind
parts of its former shape/skeleton.)>
It is situated on the
substrate. The first question is that it occasionally seems to have one
or two tentacles drop off for no reason, is this normal regeneration
behavior?
<That's bizarre. I've never heard of the tentacles falling
off. Are you sure they're actually falling off and not disintegrating or
retracting back into the coral?>
Secondly the calcareous structures
have what look like a green algae growing on them but instead of it
being raised on the surface it looks as though it is eating into the
coral!!?
<The calcareous structures are most likely dead coral
skeleton that are (or were at one time) deeply grooved. The algae is
probably not eating the coral but growing out from within the dead
skeleton's grooves.>
The coral seems happy enough and is fully
extended through the day, but does shrink right down at night so none of
tentacles are at all visible apart form the very tips.
<This is
normal.>
Your help is very appreciated and keep up the great work!
<Thank you.>
Wayne Tunnah
<Best,
Sara M.>
Fungiid emergency surgery 8/30/07
Hi,
At my LFS today I saw this beautiful tongue coral with some
issues (mainly brown jelly disease). So the guy there gives me the
coral for FREE. I was really excited! free coral!! He looked at me
like I was crazy for wanting it. He doesn't think I can save it. Ha!
Brown jelly is no match for a Dremel saw! ;-)
So check this out,
I took some pre-op and post-op photos. What do you think? Oh, and I
was able to ID it to the species Polyphyllia talpina using the dead
piece of skeleton I cut out.
Best,
Sara
<Well done all the
way around. BobF> |
.jpg) |
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Withering plate coral? Heliofungia... misplaced and period.
5/23/07
Hello. Like most questioners, I am newer to the hobby.
<Is a blast eh?>
I searched this site for an article on long
tentacle plates and was unable to find one. Please help me investigate
this situation.
<Hmmm, the monotypic genus Heliofungia? Please see
here:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/fungiids2.htm
and the linked files
above re the care of the family, Fungiidae>
My 24 gal tank
<Very
hard to keep this family of stony corals in such small volumes... just
too unstable chem-, phys, biolog- ically>
has been running for about
4 months right now. Ph, nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia levels have been
great all along. I have a 12 lb block of live rock that is the home for
my star polyp coral, which has been doing fantastic.
<And is an
organism "high" on a scale of "winning" allelopathically...>
I have
a few scarlet crabs and some snails as well as a green Chromis that
seems healthy. I recently added a Kenya tree and a long tentacle plate
coral.
<This species, H. actiniformis, is very difficult to keep...>
They are based at the bottom middle/front of the tank and are receiving
plenty of light and a steady water flow. I feed them Kent's essential
elements once a week along with some ZooPlex every couple of days. The
plate also seems to like krill. Both the Kenya tree and the long
tentacle plate were adjusting well until this week when i noticed the
tentacles on the plate are somewhat withering and shrinking. Is it dying
or is this just a process it goes through?
<Is likely dying... due
to the vagaries of collection et al., the small/changeable system, the
presence of the other Classes of stinging-celled life... It would be
surprising if this organism were doing well here...>
I also noticed
a bubble at the base of the plate. Could you explain this to me, please?
Elizabeth
<This last may be a reproductive/bail-out/last ditch
effort mechanism at reproduction... You will read about this in
searching the above link. Please adapt/adopt a/the process of
investigating new purchases BEFORE their acquisition. Bob Fenner>
Plate corals... hlth. 5/11/07
I have a
155gal reef tank with a Birdsnest branching coral, xenia, polyps, candy
cane, hammer, and mushroom corals everyone of those are fine. I bought a
large plate coral it did fine for three months so I bought a lone
tentacle plate
<? Is a common name am not familiar with... a Fungia
species?>
it did fine for about two months they both ate and I read
everything I could about them so I would care for them right and they
both at the same time started looking almost like there skin was being
cut or going away and there bones were showing they would sometimes heal
and then it got so bad they both died within a week of one another. They
were not close to and other corals and they were about three feet from
one another and none of my fish picked on them I watched day and night
were they could not see me I do water changes and put calcium in there
and have read about seven books about them. Any idea what may have gone
wrong I would love to have another one.
<Not w/ the paucity of
information presented... What re set-up, maintenance, circulation, water
quality tests, foods/feeding...?>
My tank has been set up for about
three years. If you could please help. Thank you.
<Please read here:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/fungiidae.htm
and the linked files
above. Bob Fenner>
Crazy Worm? – 02/27/07
I just got home to my poor stressed
tank and see something very strange on my clump of dish coral. Two
or three corals have developed close together and it looks like some
type of segmented worm going from one to the other. Or could they be
transferring material? I am not sure if I should get it with
tweezers or not. I am sending a photo along.
Thanks,
Cathy
<<Well Cathy I can't really make anything out from the photo, but
this doesn't look like a worm to me...it appears more to be
mucus/excrement...and likely nothing to be concerned
about. Regards, EricR>> |
Re: Crazy Worm? – 02/28/07
Thanks again Eric.
<<Hi
Cathy!...quite welcome>>
I just wanted to follow up. In
fact, it was a brown segmented worm.
<<Ah, thank you for
this...I did not get that from the photo>>
Have you ever
heard of this before.
<<Mmm...many, many, MANY species of
worms about (in excess of 10,000 I do believe). Do you have any
(missing?) fan/tube worms? Possibly one of these exited its
parchment tube and was actually being consumed by the coral
rather than the other way around>>
It was as if it was going
into the mouth of my dish coral.
<<Yes...did see this>>
I did yank it out and had it move around awhile. I could not
identify it.
<<Too bad you didn't take/send a close-up pic>>
Seemed more like an earthworm than bristle worm.
<<From what
I could discern, yes, would agree it was not a bristle worm>>
Thanks again for all your advice.
Cathy
<<Always happy to try to assist. EricR>> | 
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Heliofungia actiniformis tissue recovery 12/1/06
Hi Crew,
<Hey Mohamed, JustinN with you this morning>
I have a Heliofungia
which has lost a bit of tissue.
The question is will the tissue grow
back?
Thanks
Mohamed
<Well, Mohamed, with regular meaty
feedings, pristine water conditions, and overall good husbandry skills,
there should be no problems. If the recession is not increasing any
further, you should be fine. Hope this helps you! -JustinN>
Fungia repanda looks ill... was "stunningly pink"... 10/27/06
Hi guys,
<And gals...>
I've had the Fungia repanda for about
2 weeks now. When I got it, it was a stunning pink
<... very
likely dyed... a suiting homonym for died...>
but over the last
couple of days it has got a lot lighter in colour and now is a
mixture of light brown and white. The flesh appears to have sunk
into the spiky skeleton, which is now very obvious, and the mouth
is open. I've been feeding small pieces of lancefish once a week.
<...>
The plate I placed on the sand under 216w of T5's and with
little flow around it. My calcium is 420 and Alk is 6dkh (been at
this level for months!! currently using SeaChem to try to raise it
to around 8dkh).
I would be most grateful if you could shed some
light on what is happening and what I can do to restore the coral to
its former glory.
<Can't be done... You've been swindled. Please
read here:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/dyedcorals.htm
and the linked
files above.
BobF>
Cheers
Kev, Yorkshire (UK) |
Re: Fungia Repanda looks ill...
10/29/06
Hi Bob,
<Kev>
thanks for your
reply, it certainly surprised me. I've included a link below to
the site where I bought the coral and it includes a picture of
the coral when I first got it. Do you think it has been dyed?
_Purple Plate Coral :: Archived Coral ( Already Sold Items ) ::
Archived Items :: Reefstore_ (http://www.reefstore.co.uk/cart/Pu
rple-Plate-Coral-pr-17083.html)
<Mmm, no... or at least
not by this photo. The flesh itself is what I had taken as being
pink... not simply the light red coloring along the edge of the
skeleton shown. This can indeed be "just natural">
A forum
member suggested the plate could be suffering due to
chemical warfare. I have a group of 3 Sarcophytons about 8
inches away on a higher rock and several small Capnella frags
about 4 inches away. Could these be causing a problem?
<Oh
yes... along with the fact that these and most all other
Fungiids are not easily kept in/under aquarium conditions
period>
I noticed during the night a Halloween crab sat on
the plate. Could this have caused the problem?
<Yikes...
Yes>
Thanks again for replying.
Kind Regards
Kev
<Welcome... You have read re Plate Coral husbandry on WWM I take
it. BobF> | 
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