Help Bringing Sun Coral back to Life!

Ok, so one of my friends gave me a sun coral frag that needs to be revived a little. She didn't want it anymore. She had a red slime algea out break in her tank not too long ago and just recently got rid of it all. Apparently the sun coral got covered in it and suffocated a bit. The polyps are sunk into the skeleton but I think there still is a possibility to bring it back. The is my first nps coral... Anything specifically I should do to help it along? I have it down near the bottom snugged along side of some LR to shade it a little. Not on the sandbed! Would love some advice, thanks.

 

Oh, here is a pic of the sun coral frag. It still looks like it's worth trying to save.

 

Pics would help show how bad or good it is.

Mine looks sunk in when it's resting. But the external tissue has good color. It also doesn't care about light or shade.

I conditioned it to extend during feeding time in the evening by soaking food in tank water and using a turkey baster to blow the water with the soaked flake onto the coral.

 

Was typing while you were posting obviously.

Get it laid down flat so you can get food to rest on it. See if you can get it to extend and eat. It doesn't look that far gone yet.

 

I just squirted some Coral Extacy over the top of mine and wow!! All the polyps came out of hiding within minutes-totally food oriented

 

Yea, I read to place it in a container with tank water and let small pieces of food settle ontop of it for about 15mins. Just placed him in there like that. My tank has a little too high flow for food to just settle on it lol and I don't have enough room to place a pop bottle over him to do it that way. I hear good things about doing it in a container, and even saw one post of someone who did it this way and a couple days later he says some polyps starting to open. And his sun coral was almost basically gone. So, I'll give this a try. It probably doesn't help that he is still acclimating to my tank since I got him today! but i don't think my friend was feeding it correctly either though.

 

When I kept sun coral I cut the top of a plastic bottle off and when I fed the coral I would place the bottle top over it and feed it, when the coral finished eating I would remove the bottle top. I took the ravaged coral frag (similar in size to yours, but much worse off) and brought it back and then some before giving it away to another friend who wanted it. Regular feeding is what you will need to do.

If you have any shrimp keep the bottle over it for a little longer or the shrimp will simply go in and grba the frozen food right out of the sun coral.

 

What about turning off the flow for about 10 minutes? I do it

 

That works too. I hate turning off the flow, that's just me. I always have a fear of trying to turn everything back on and some stuff just doesn't lol.

 

Sun coral didn't make it I think next time I will try a truly healthy one I think. Oh well... I did my best.