Bringing a Scoly Back From the Dead

[gofor100]

So I've been stopping in at one of my LFS's for the last couple of months salivating over this one Aussie Scoly that is a color morph I have never seen before (a majority of it is a lavender/baby blue with red/orange stripes)... and the price was COMPLETELY out of my range. :eek:

Unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago, the LFS owner's salinity went on the fritz due to an auto-top off malfunction and a good portion of his livestock (including this scoly) had tissue recession. A majority of the livestock is now back and thriving, but when I went into the store this last Saturday, the lavender/red scoly was still shrunken in. :(

So after questioning the LFS owner (who is an extremely nice guy) about the scoly, and whether it has shown signs of getting better (and him knowing that I've drooled in his tanks every time I came in to look at this scoly and since he doesn't typically feed his scolymias or have the time to tend to every single one like I would), he said that he would give it to me for FREE to see if I can nurse it back to health. :celeb1:

After changing my underwear from peeing myself, I brought the scoly home (and another one that I had my eye on, since I figured if I'm getting one for free, I might as well buy something too :beer:) and acclimated it to the tank. After a couple of hours, I noticed that it was slightly inflated (which I felt was a good sign, but even at the LFS it was slightly inflated, so nothing to write home about). So obviously the title of this thread is a LITTLE dramatic... but you get the point.

That night (which was Saturday) after the lights went out, I came home to find that it's feeding tentacles were out looking for food... so of course I squirted some brine and mysis shrimp on it to see if it would eat. It looked like it had pulled in a few morsels to its mouth, but nowhere near the voracity of my other bleeding apple scoly (which has been in the tank for about 2 months). The next morning (Sunday), its feeding tentacles were out again, so I fed it again, and it seemed to pull in a few more morsels. Then again this morning I fed it... this time it may have gotten about 2 mysis shrimps since I had to leave for work and couldn't watch it forever and had to turn the pumps back on before I left.

I don't have any pics yet, but I'll try to take some later tonight and hopefully post them.

So far I see promise since it seems to be eating, or at least showing a feeding response. If I could nurse this back to health, you don't know how happy I would be...

Right now, I've got it in a low flow area on the sandbed of my 60 gallon SPS dominated tank that is running 2 X 250watt 15,000K MH.

My params are as follows and are very stable since my SPS are doing great:

Ammonia= 0
Nitrite= 0
Nitrate= 0
Alkalinity= 9 dKH
Calcium= 450
Magnesium= 1400

My plan is to try and feed it a few pieces of brine/mysis shrimp everyday until it starts eating with a quicker response (it seems to take a while for the tentacles to bring the food to its mouth). Then once it starts eating with more urgency, I'll probably feed it more in portions, but just every other day, and then slowly spread the days fed out until I'm feeding it once a week (which is how much I feed my other scoly and it is doing great). Hopefully this feeding, and my stable params will nurse this back to health...

Any additional tips or success stories on nursing a scoly back to health? Any information would be great...

Thanks,

Chad

[xxscoobiixx]

Congrats on the pickup. I can't wait to see pictures of it's progression. I can't help with the Q's but bumping for hopeful help. What fish store was this? I'm from socal too so hopefully I can help nurse some other corals back to health. :fun2:

[smogl00]

Great find!! Man, free. That's crazy! Your params look good IMO, just feed feed feed! Usually an area with a bit lower flow and light helps too from what I've heard. There are tons of stories about LPS literally dying into a complete skeleton, and then making an entire comeback to grow back over the whole skeleton! I too, would love some pics to see this thing. Good luck!

[Cptn Spaulding]

thats an awesome find.. im pretty jealous. it will take awhile for the scoly to fully recover but just keep feeding it at least a few times a week and keep those parameters in check and youre golden. ps... we need pics!

[gofor100]

I promise pics will come soon... although they won't be great since I only have a point and shoot. But hopefully the colors will come through when I post it. If I can compare the colors to anything, it looks like the vibrant lavender blue and reds of the Superman Monti colors... but on a Scoly.

So I guess I'll call it a "Superman Scoly"... just hope it makes it.

I'm not home right now, but I'll post some pics when I can tonight.

[slk55r]

I have one scoly that was receding a ton from shipping but it has been slowly healing back.

I just keep it in low flow and feed when I see the tentacles out.

Seems like the healing process is quite lengthly on scolys. It had receded about 50% and now after 2 months is about 90%.

[gofor100]

Lets see if this works... not a GREAT picture.

[gofor100]

The colors are obviously more vibrant in person, but if you have a Crayola crayon box, its like a "Perriwinkle and Red" coloring... very cool. My point and shoot camera also picks up more blue light, which doesn't help bring out the true colors of the coral.

Another thing you'll see is that it looks decently inflated (or at least more inflated than I've ever seen it). So on Day 3, it looks like progress.

I'll continue to post pics as they come, and hopefully I'll have my friend who has a DSLR camera that can capture more of the colors.

[gofor100]

Here's some pics of my two other "healthy" scolymias...

[ChurchBoy]

gofor100,

Great pickup & will be following since I've got a scoly I'm nursing myself!

[gofor100]

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with the progress so far. As you can see in the picture, I'm clearly not out of the woods yet, but compared to the 1st day (and even 2nd day), it looks a lot more inflated.

I tried feeding it this morning, and it seemed to have a little quicker reaction to the food, but still quite slow. I had to stand there for about 7 minutes to watch it slowly close up its tentacles over its mouth and then another 5 minutes watching it keep the tentacles over its mouth with the food (I hope) making its way into the mouth... so I'm assuming it got at least a little to eat this morning.

Needless to say, I was a little late to work this morning...

[gofor100]

thelittlereef: I'm feeding it a mixture of vitamin enhanced brine shrimp and mysis shrimp. Right now I'm feeding it at night or in the morning when the lights are off (the only time its tentacles are out right now), but as with my other scolys, I'll likely train it to extend its tentacles at feeding time during daylight hours so I can feed it when I'm feeding the other tank residents (but only after I'm able to bring it back to full strength). Any other suggestions for food? I was thinking of adding cyclopeeze, but wasn't sure if this is too small of particles for it to actually consume.

I know the color in the picture isn't great... but has anyone ever seen this color variant (light blue/purple with red striping), and if so, can you post pics to give everyone else an idea of the AWESOMENESS that I'm trying to bring back to life? If not, I'll just have to wait for my friend with a DSLR to take more precise pictures.

[thelittlereef]

No we can not see the light blue and purple but can see the red. And yes I would think cyclopeeze would help. GOOD LUCK

[gofor100]

thelittlereef: I know that it is difficult to see the purple/blue coloration in my picture... what I was asking was if anyone has ever seen that type of coloration on an aussie scoly. Probably too difficult to tell without me posting a better pic... so I'll see what I can do about that. Thanks for the the "good luck"... I need all the luck I can get.

[Cptn Spaulding]

nice colors, i can imagine what it looks like.. almost like a warpaint scoly. good luck and feed the hell outta it!

[gofor100]

I'll probably post some more pics this weekend when hopefully there will be a noticeable difference. But so far so good... it seems to be ready to eat every morning and is starting to get at least a few pieces of food (or at least I think, since its kind of hard to see the mouth when all of its tentacles are in the way).

I'll be crossing my fingers...

[ericung]

I think your scoly is going to recover completely although the process may take up to 3 months, congratulations.

[gofor100]

Ericung: Looks like you have some experience with Aussie Scoly's considering your avatar seems to have like 3 or 4... NICE!

[gofor100]

You guys wouldn't believe how stoked I was this morning!!!

After doing my weekly water change last night, and having consistent feedings every morning this week with the recovering scoly, this morning was the first time I'd seen the scoly actually have an immediate and quick feeding response (it looks like it devoured the brine/mysis/cyclopeeze mixture I fed it).

As I've said before, it would eat daily, but it definitely didn't have the same vigor as the other two "healthy" scolys.

Anyways, thought I would share the good news. And I'll probably get some pictures over the weeked and post them (hopefully my friend can bring by his DSLR so we can actually get some GOOD pictures).

[Jah2707]

That is great to hear. A similar thing happened at a LFS but I paid $20 for it. After 6 months is was about 90% back to itself. Best $20 I ever spent on the tank.

[gofor100]

So here's a long overdue update of the scoly.

Here's a pic taken a week after I started this thread (again, not a great pic, but the placement of the coral was difficult to capture its colors)...

[gofor100]

Yet another couple of pics taken a week after that (May 9th)... you can see the tissue increasing color and expansion literally EVERY WEEK!

[gofor100]

And then finally the most recent pics (taken today June 5th) after I placed it in the same spot as my other scolys a couple of weeks ago. As the weeks went by in the "old spot", since its tissue was expanding more and more, the current seemed to be hitting it too hard, so I had to move it. It took a couple of days to acclimate, but as you can see, it's looking pretty good, AND (I think) you can see its true colors even better in the new spot (although I still haven't had my DSLR friend come by to take some nice pics)...

[gofor100]

Yep, I just check my most recent post, and that is almost spot on when it comes to its actual colors... I love it!!! :dance:

[areucrazy]

It is beautiful and you did a great job saving it! A little love sure does go a long way! I bought one at a local LFS and they had cut it in half. Mine is dark purple with light blue streaks. I had always seen the bright colored ones so I had to get this darker one. It is slowly growing back into a circle they said it may take 6 months.

[footballdude2k3]

nicely done, also i think this would be a much much more expensive coral (like the acans micros were) if it grew faster.