Plate Coral Buried

Today, I found my purple plate coral buried under my live sand thanks to my sand-sifting gobies. It is still purple around the edges but is white in the center. Does this mean it is dead? Is there anything that I can do to help it out? (Obviously keep the gobies from covering it up from now on :-[.) I guess I will see if its tenacles come out tonight.....

 

It should recover. I've got my fingers crossed....

 

I've lost a couple of those. Not to sand but bubbles trapped under the plate. My gobies and trigger have both been burying my leathers lately and I have moved them to safer surroundings. All seems to be ok now.

 

They should recover fine, just keep it away from the digger.

 

my yellow watchman does the same thing, its annoying as heck!! it looks like some of my zoas are growing on the sand bc he keeps covering them up!!!

 

i didnt think you could keep triggers with inverts??

 

There are a few that you can keep and others that are not compatible. I have a Niger. It is a beautiful fish and is reef safe. Many others are not. Marine Fish & Marine Inverts are great books that can help you figure it out.

 

plate corals regenrate

I didnt know if you knew this, but even when a plate coral appears dead there is still tissue alive down deep and this will create baby plate corals these will grow to a 50 cent size or large, drop off and the stalk they leave behind will create another plate coral. In essence you will have a limitless supply of plate corals. I have one that is green with neon orange mouth and i have more plate corals then i can shake a stick at, ill be sure to post a pic of it

 

Interesing....I did not know that. I was trying to post pictures of my plate coral but the resizing program made me mad so I just said forget it. My plate is turning a brownish color on the one side that had turned white, so I am not sure if this is bad or good, but I'm thinking any color besides white is good. It is purple on the other half and sticks its little tentacles up to feed at night so I am hoping/guessing it is going to make it. I hope so I just bought the thing the week before it got burried. I have since moved it away from the diggers and put it on top of a piece of egg crate where I keep my frags at, at least until it is healed.

 

I agree. I think turning brown is a good thing. At my buddies shop, a couple he had turned completely white before they checked out...