Soft coral got too cold

[Tango451]

Does anyone know if cipro treatment of a leather coral would be as effective as for an anemone? Are there any other things I can do to help allow it to survive?

Water was close to freezing (felt like a water bottle from an ice chest), and the water was black (there is some black around its base at first thought it had dissolved but 96% is intact) when arrived. Immediately got it into qt once arrived. Color is good. Looks limp. And there are some black/ dark spots on certain areas.

It is a sinularia

Currently its in qt with a power heard running on it to help with flow

I believe there is some kind of bacterial infection induced from shipping in cold weather where the heat pack did not keep it warm. There is already some necrosis on certain tips, looks limp, but still has its color. Some of the tips are black, a few are deteriorating (like said above, will probably cut those off before lights out tonight).

I could be wrong, just want to whatever I can do in order for it to be ok/ survive

[Tango451]

There is also black/ dark areas/ dark brown on a lot of the coral.

I read somewhere that soft corals shed and it can look like dark discolorations?


Too many to cut all of it off. So far I gave it an iodine dip and took a tooth brush gently to its base to remove all of the black at least there. By the time I was done the water was dark brown (couldn't even see through it)

[Dkuhlmann]

You also asked on the anemone forum about treating with Cipro, I don't think it will hurt anything but also wouldn't expect much from survival of your coral if the water got as cold as you say it did. What you are seeing with the black tissue is necrosis and it will probably all become that way eventually.

Things you can try are to cut off the dead tissue and dip the coral in an iodine solution that is in the link I posted below. This is the regular iodine that you can get from any drug store. We use it on all newly fragged corals because it also prevents infection. We also use it for bacterial infections in all corals. I honestly don't think you have an infection but dead tissue like I said earlier.

You can also try dipping in a product called Revive, it's for dipping corals and is an awesome product, I use it all of the time.

Anyway here is the link for dipping with iodine and I wish you good luck. Please keep us updated to your progress, good or bad. But in all honesty if it were mine I'd cut off the dead tissue and dip in iodine then put back in your tank, in an area with medium light and flow.

Leathers are very hardy and resilient, the way toadstools are fragged is we cut up the head into 1"x1" pieces and glue them to a frag plug, they then grow into another full sized normal leather. Even the tiniest piece will become a full sized coral.

http://www.athiel.com/lib/bacterial.html

[Tango451]

I have been doing iodine dips (did one last night and one tonight). Coral is starting to rip apart. I cut off some of the bad areas but I cannot figure out if the coral is compromised and just got too cold with no chance of any of it coming back/ making it or it by some stroke of luck it will be able to pull through.

It is paler today. I would use antibiotics but I am still trying to asses the health of it. I want to give another day or so to see if it starts looking better because if it by any chance healing, cipro could possibly end up hurting it. And on the other hand, ff it is dying due to being cold, antibiotics won't help.

Also since it is in qt, one thing I was thinking of is cutting a small piece that looks ok and placing it in my dt with stronger lighting and see how it does and if it reacts/perks up etc, I will move the whole piece into dt. The only thing I am worried about if I do the frag test, is if it is bacterial or something else, can it spread to the other soft corals in my tank?

And yes, just because I know a lot of us with anemones are experienced with antibiotcs and thought maybe someone has tried it on leathers.

[miranda1960]

if you have some good branches on the coral better to take some good frags from and remove the black soft.. might its a bacterial matter and you wont save the sinularia at all (sorry i have more then one sinularia in my tank so thats my experience with them)
We had this with an import from australia... when the corals arrieved on the airport they let them for a couple of hours outside in the cold so the water was almost freezing.. and yes the sinularia's became black and died..
believe me its the only way to save the coral.

[Tango451]

I did frag the branches that looked good, but they didn't make it either. Eventually everything turned dark brown/ black and started falling apart. The base was extremely hard/ frozen when I got it and the water felt like it was in an ice chest.