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pathos

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i'm sorry to hear that Paul.
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danmhippo

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Just a thought, but maybe too late now. Have you ever thought of fragging the fire coral first and kalk bath the remaining parts? I know that fire coral are not typically prize keepers for some aquarists, but, at least this way, you will have 2 living corals.
 

Paul A. Ifkovits

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I hate to have any coral die, especially if it is the result of a mistake on my part. But I have a situation where I had to try to kill a fire coral that was slowly encrusting a beautiful and very large bright green Pavona.

I purchased the pavona almost 3 years ago. At the time of purchase, the fire coral was present. I actually thought the fire coral was a bit of recession on the Pavona. The fire coral remained dormant for 2 1/2 years. When I set up my new 120. It woke up and grew very quickly slowly killing the pavona

I posted a question here and on reefCentral for suggestions, but received none. So last night, fearing to wait any longer, I tried an old remedy I first used to rid my tank of aptisia.

I mixed up a kalkwasser paste in hot RO water and used a syringe to apply it the fire coral. I kept the majority of the pavona in a seawater bath to avoid any additional injury. I rinced the coral aggresively in seawater before returning it to the tank. This morning it appeared to have worked. Most of the tissue was gone on the fire coral. I suspect a second application may be necessary.

I really hated to do this. But the pavona was my first choice....
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Paul A. Ifkovits

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Danmhippo -

I did think about fragging, but there wasn't really anything there to frag. It was an encrusting fire coral that spread across the flat plain of the Pavona with very little outward growth. It did have one very small "wart" that protruded very slightly, but would have been hard to impossible to frag.

Paul
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Paul A. Ifkovits

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Ben,

I did think of this. However, I was thinking about using a Dremel tool to sand it off. My concern is fire corals are very very agressive and can cause pretty severe burns. I was afraid of "spraying" it all over and getting burned on any exposed areas.

Paul
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MicroChip

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Ok, I know a lot of people are going to be annoyed at what you did, but I wanted to share my sympathy. I had a piece of live rock that came with encrusting fire coral as a hitchiker, started as a small area and spread and spread. It got to be I couldn't even clean one section of my glass for fear of brushing my hand against it (which I did several times). So you know what I did? When I moved from the 46 bow to the 75, I put that rock fire coral side down in the sand. No more fire coral.

People can piss and moan, but aiptasia is a reef creature. It's an anemone that you get with your live rock. You kill that, don't you? Because it kills your other corals. Well fire coral pretty much is the same kind of pest, only it also hurts like hell when you touch it. Sorry, but if you can kill your aiptasia and valonia to save your acropora, then we can kill our fire coral to save our acropora (and our hands).

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Paul A. Ifkovits

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MC,

Exactly! Like I said, I really did not want to do this. I hate to kill anything. (Hell, I am the type who catches bugs in the house and sets them free. This includes scorpions that are running wild down here right now). But the Pavona was a much rarer piece.

Paul
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Mouse

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Once when i was little probably abou 12 or 13 i knocked a large lump of fire coral off a reef in Turkey. I had allways wanted a piece of bleached coral just like my Grandad, so i took the coral in a bucket up to the beach. Once i reached the beach i took out the coral and placed it in the bottom of the foot wash conviniently at the start of the beach. I aimed the head of the hose and fired a jet of water straight at the coral. To my surprise and imense discomfort it fired back at me. I could visibly see hundreds and thousands of tiny barbs come shooting all at once in my direction. It covered me head to toe in a light hail of venomous barbs, nice.

I havnt touched fire coral again, and i dont think i will, horrible stuff.
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