chalice/favid coral help!!

I don't think it has much time left...I got this coral for free and it has been steadily declining in health. I have tested my water params and everything is ideal. I have tried moving the coral to different levels in my tank thinking it might be a reaction to my lighting. It started in med light, was moved into a more direct light, and now has been in a shaded overhang for the last few days. At the rate of decay I would estimate I have a few days tops to figure something out. I don't even know for sure what kind of coral it is as no one has been able to identify it absolutely. The best guesses have it as a chalice or Favid. I really want to save this coral.. it was so beautiful...

Any help or advice would be appreciated. My last idea for saving the coral was to move it again... but to my refugium. I don't know if it was a good move or bad on my part...it only has a 20 watt 6500K CFL bulb for light.

Help me save it!

 

Does look like a favia, but I'm not 100% sure. What are you params exactly? Do you have any other corals? Also, IMO you don't have the proper lighting to keep the coral.

 

Keep track of the Coral Beauty it may be attacking it.

 

I'm at a loss to ID this thing. I've been looking for about 20 mins now, and finding nothing.

 

My temp 77, SG 1.025, ammonia,nitrate,nitrite,phos = 0, cal 440, mag 1300, DkH=10, pH=8.2. The majority of my corals are softies...listed in signature, Just have a cup coral and this one in question that are not softies.


I have heard of ppl keeping these under PC lights, under t5 and under MH. there should be no problem with type of lighting it would be a matter of finding a level of light that this coral is wanting. The person who gave it away had it under a 250W MH on the sand in a fairly deep tank (aprox 24'' deep)

Coral beauty doesn't even look at it...not sure at night tho.

like I said before its now in my fuge under a 20W 6500K CFL. Not sure if that will help or hinder the recovery...

 

Just bc one person says it can be kept under CFL lighting doesn't mean your particular coral can, especially if it was used to living under a MH. I'm not sure on the ID either but you could always try to frag off the remaining healthy part that way if it is some kind of infection, you get the healthy parts off before the infection has time to spread to it. Just a thought, I'm not sure if it's an infection or not.

 

I know its hard to say what can and can't be done if we don't even know what type of coral it is. All I know is that it was free, It's not a common coral found at the LFS.

one other observation: I was told to look for little sweeper arms at night to try and feed with mysis....this coral doesn't have little sweepers that come out at night...i look every evening with the flashlight. I would like to try and feed the coral as that seemed to be the turn around point for my pagoda cup that was also at the same time decaying, it's looking lots better

 

Lots of favias won't put out feeders at night if they're getting enough food. I would definitely pull it and give it a dip in case it's anything bacterial or parasitic. I would also get it into some legit lighting, as it's definitely not used to 6500k spectrum lighting.

How, exactly, is the coral declining? You didn't really elaborate on exactly what is going on with it.

 

if you look in the picture you can see small spots where the skeleton is comming through almost like its slowly melting away. I'll post a more recent pict so you can see the difference of a week of time...

 

this is recent. the original pict in the post is when i started to see the decay.. i would call it melting....

it's not near anything that could sting it or attack it. looks like another coral had dumped its guts on this poor guy and ate him all up.