A little education please?

Trish Hunt gigi101 at bellsouth.net
Tue Oct 2 10:00:59 EDT 2001


I am hoping someone can tell me if corals, specifically plate corals
(Heliofungia actiniformis ?) can recuperate from tissue damage?  A
particular specimen I have in my home aquarium (please don’t cringe too
hard) wasn’t attached to its rock as well as I thought and had fallen over
upside down onto my piping.  After setting it right-side up, a small section
of the tentacles appear to be damaged in that they are remaining shrunken
up, coupled with darker discoloration; but the rest of the animal has
extended its tentacles and is “behaving” normally.  Is it possible the
damaged tentacles will recover or replace themselves?  Is death of the
entire coral (est. 5in. diameter) imminent?  Is there anything I can do to
help it at all?

I know many of you cringe at the aquarium industry, but I am keeping this
aquarium and just now beginning to keep corals so that I may learn more
about their care pending the possibility of necessity of collecting corals
and other life forms from a particular area pending a beach restoration
project that threatens to bury near shore hardbottom habitat.  Neither the
county nor the state wants to admit that corals exist in this area or that
salutation will have adverse effects on the reef habitat.  I had come up
with the idea of collecting what I can if the project is permitted,
“babysitting” what I collect until the silt settles after project
completion, and then relocating the organisms to their original location.
This idea was solidified in my brain and in my heart when I had seen others
from other regions of the world asking about coral transplantation after
dredging projects.  If people from other countries are transplanting corals,
why not Americans?  Why not me?

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