Terrible Advice Tuesdays (T.A.Tues): A White Coral Is A Dead Coral
Terrible Advice Tuesdays (T.A.Tues): A coral that has turned white is dead and should be removed from your tank.
The rest of the story: First things first. A coral that has turned white (called bleaching) is not a good thing. The bleaching is a sign of stress and stressing your corals is bad.
And, just because a coral is white, that doesn’t mean you should immediately consider it dead. Corals can bleach out and sometimes recover. That being said, how do you know if the white coral is dead or not?
For soft and LPS corals the answer is easy: as long as there is still flesh or a single polyp alive, the coral isn’t dead. Take for example zoanthids. As long as there is still a polyp visible (even if it is closed up), the coral is still alive.
For LPS coral, if there is any flesh on the coral, the coral isn’t dead – at least not yet. A LPS coral that is losing flesh and exposing its white skeleton is not happy. It might dying off and it might just be damaged. I’ve seen LPS corals completely bleach out, yet still retain their flesh and recover to become beautiful corals once more. A great example is my aussie gold torch coral (see picture at the right) that bleached out completely and I was able to recover it back to its original golden yellow sheen as shown in the photo.
For SPS corals, if you can see any polyps on the coral, then the coral is at least still alive and may recover. A SPS coral that is white and doesn’t have any polyps is dead in my book.
When it doubt, leave the coral in your tank for a week. If the white part of a stony coral turns grey and algae takes over, consider the coral a goner. For soft corals, if all the flesh of the coral is gone, not surprise here…it is dead. Remember: white coral = not a happy coral, but not necessarily a dead one.
Browse the Store! Questions?
What should I do in the case of a short tentacle plate coral that has skeleton visible around the mouth? It’s been in a tank that recycled (nitrite 3) after a sand storm. Now I’ve moved it in my old tank near two happy plates.
It’s a baby one, probably a Fungia, fluorescent green with blue tips
Mark, I’ve noticed you have green growth on your live rock. Is that a form of macro algae, a hard algae or something else? I have it in my tank, on my substrate too. It is not slimy or soft. It is a very thin layer and you can still see the pores in the rocks, etc. The problem is my wife HATES it so the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) is down. Any idea?
I had a Sun Coral bleach out, I thought it was dead but did not remove it from my tank. Then it go knocked off the rock it was on and fell into a lower light area and it came back from nothing!!! Not as big but still alive.
Note to self, Sun Corel does not like direct sun….
And if the coral has tuned white, then it needs supplemental feeding to recover. Without its zooxanthellae it can’t produce any nutrients so it needs those nutrients from food.
I myself had a Trachyphyllia wich become white. I tried to recover it but I failed. Happy to hear that you Mark had success recovering that gold torch! Very nice coral indeed
Excellent advice… It can be expanded upon … Nem’s can bleach and can recover for example … but those aren’t coral so another story for another time…
How long have you had that Aussie torch? I don’t recall seeing it before or have I just not been paying close enough attention again?
when i started ‘reefing’ I started with a few mushrooms. I did not have the appropriate lighting. my hairy shrooms began to bleach. (I had a lighting fixture on order). Once the new lighting was installed, I made sure that the hairy-guy had un-fettered access to the light and boy is it happy!
Good call on the LPS. I have a frogspawn that that was completely bleached (a clearish white color). As it turns out my digital thermometer was not displaying the correct temperature which prompted me to adjust my heater. Over time I had increased the water temperature to 86-88 degrees. All I had at the time was LPS and softies. I slowly brought my water temp down and the frogspawn regained its color over the next few weeks. The frogspawn is huge now. Lesson learned… I only use glass thermometers for my aquarium.
Sorry, the digital thermometer was displaying the INCORRECT temperature. Needless to say I do not trust digital thermometers anymore.
Heater failures is ONE of the many reasons to buy a controller. Even if you don’t like them its an extra fail safe, even if you bought one just for your heater(s). One stuck heater could cost you enough money to buy 5 controllers easy in some systems. IMO
Mark,
You are sooo right in this. I had a large colony of Blue Sympodium, maybe 8×5 inches that melted away and I lost the entire colony overnight. It happend so fast there was nothing I could do and I still do not know the cause. I pulled the rock that it was on and put it in my FOWLR tank for about a month. I didnt like how it looked in there so I decided to put it back in to my main display tank where it belonged. 2 weeks later I noticed that my sump tank live rock was covered in blue sympodium, this made me check the other rock that was COMPLETELY devoid of all life for 6 weeks. It now had about 60 polyps growing on it and is spreading rapidly every day. I dont understand how they came back but I do know I now have blue sympodium in several areas of my tank that came back in the last week after placing the rock back in my main display tank. So yah, just because it dies, doesnt mean its gone forever.
Mark:
I could not agree more. I went on a long weekend trip with my wife. Gone for 3 days. Fed the fish (3 times in one day) before leaving. I figured they could stand 3 days without food though they would not be happy with me.
I came home to a tank full of happy fish, along with 2 LPS and 2 SPS completely bleached out.
I was frantic to know what happened. Neighbor (who knows about my tank) informed me that our power was out for 2 of the 3 days.
My pink plate coral was completely gone (I thought). My frogspawn looked the same. I had a tri-color SPS that was in the same condition along with a yellow cup coral.
I figured that since the SPS and LPS were either encrusted in the rock or on my sand bed, I would let them stay there just to remind me to never leave town again without someone checking on the tank daily.
Gee guess what the 2 SPS came back after about a month, and are recovering slowly. My frogspawn is out in full glory though smaller than it was.
My pink plate was the most amazing recovery I have ever seen.
I came home one day and noticed that some color was starting to show on the top of it’s skeleton.
Since then it has grown on it’s skeleton, and so far has produced 14 baby plates that have move away for their mother. I let them grow and sold them to my local fish store. It shows no sign of stopping it’s propagation since I now have another 5 that have moved away from the mother. The mother is still splitting off babies every 4 weeks or so.
PLEASE, don’t give up on a bleached coral, you just never know. 🙂
What about when SPS corals turn brown? The polyps are still out and extended but how do I know if the original color of the coral is going to recover and what do I need to do to help make this happen? Also, what causes the browning in the first place?
Leonard – Corals going brown on you is most likely a nutrient issue… Unless your using Ultra Low Reading test kits for phos and nitrates then I’d start there… If your unsure as to how to go about combating a nutrient issue then I can highly recommend Marks guides on the matter…
http://mrswt.wpenginepowered.com/successstore/
If your not up to splashing out on the collection (I did and it beats any books/CDs/DVD/Forums hands down) then the The No-Nonsense Guide To Preventing and Curing Nuisance Algae Outbreaks is the guide for you 😉
There’s a lot to learn from the guides and you could end up buying browned out coral to colour it up … Reef Junkie Gambling I like to call it… I’m not playing myself at the moment but when the kids are older I’m setting up a tank just to play 😀
Hope that helps 🙂
Thanks for the comment. Actually, I bought an acropora frag online that was supposed to be a Red Planet and when it arrived, it actually was brown. I didn’t want to go through the hassle of complaining about it to get a refund so I decided to see what happened if I tried to nurture it since the coral was not dead. It is very much alive and all the polyps are coming out nicely and it seems to be growing. It is getting good flow and light as well.
I would like to add another story which happened to me. When I first started this hobby I didnt have much and this guy gave me a dead frogspawn skeleton which i though it was cool due to a odd shape and I place it in my aquarium…
Not sure what has happened over the past two years but this dead coral skeleton grew about 8 different heads plus a few babies always growing on-the sides and the owner can’t believe it, still kicks himself over the head for throwing me the bone looking like skeleton to use as live rock.
Now if every frag would do the same, id be an extremely happy camper 🙂
Interesting perception as I was told the same thing about my red cap montipora. Many forum members, and even live aquaria suggest my monti was dead, and to take it out as it simply stressed and bleached out and experienced RTN. I left the piece in the tank for added surface area. It grayed out, grew algae and I was sure it was a goner so all I did was brush it clean every now and then. Three months later I noticed a spec of red on the back end. Two months after that my monti has grown back, just on the opposite side of the rock and in two different places. Goes to show you, you never know.
How did you get your Gold Torch to get its color back?
I have one that is a dull purple/brown and opens up every day. I have had it for about 2 years, but it lost its gold color withing the first six months. I feed it, it has nice flow in the bottom of a 29g bio cube. Params are within range. Searched all over the net, no answer to color loss. How did you do it????