Brain Drain?

Alright, here's some pics and a quick tutorial:

First, you only want to do this if the tissue is beginning to recede on the bottom of the trachy's skeleton, like so:


If it's at that point where algae are building up on it, do as follows:

Pick up the trachy, get the algae off with a brush, scraping, or your fingers, depending on what kind it is. Be careful not to brush or scrape the tissue, corals don't like that. Build a little dugout in the sand about the size of the trachy, deep enough for the whole coral skeleton to fit in.


Place the trachy into the dugout, and bury it up to about the point that I've drawn; it should be just above (maybe 1/4" max) where the tissue line is:


Happily buried trachy:


Now, I have to go get that algae off and rebury it. But that's what I meant by "bury the skeleton". It keeps algae from growing and making it recede more, since they're ultra-sensitive to growths on their skeleton.

 

interesting... would you potentially leave the coral there indefinitely? Or is it something you should be sure to 'undo' at some point?


Thinking to try this with my trachy... might help, somehow, against blenny evilness. Couldn't hurt anyway I'm thinking.

 

I would do it indefinitely. I'm pretty sure the tissue won't grow back onto the skeleton, so I would leave it buried like that to keep algae from growing and making it recede more.

EDIT: BTW, the trachy pictured didn't expand its outer ring a single time until I did this burying + algae removal for the first time. Now, the outer ring is expanded every single day during lights-on hours.

 

FWIW Wellsophyllia radiata was reclassified years ago and now is Trachyphyllia radiata.

The tissue will indeed grow back over the skeleton. I've witnessed this a few dozen times over the years

 

I kinda meant if there's any algae on it. You aren't going to be able to scrape and get off enough to keep it from growing faster than the tissue from the trachy, so burying it is likely the best option for killing the algae.