[jsgates]

I have a short tentacle plate coral that I purchase almost a year ago at LFS and it has done great until recently. Several months ago I added a Diamond Goby to my tank and during his escapades developing an intricate tunnel system under my live rock, he decided it would be fun to bury half of my plate coral in sand he dug out. I didn't get the sand off in time and about 1/4 of the plate coral tissue deteriorated and died. This was about a month and a half ago and the remaining portion of the coral appears to be healthy. My question is:

Will the tissue that died regenerate, or would I need to remove the dead portion of the coral or something of the such. This is a pretty decent size plate coral (about 6 inches across). Anything I can do to get this coral completely healthy again? The Diamond Goby has since settled down and doesn't burrow near as much, but he has already done his damage. On a positve note, he has done a great job of cleaning up my sand bed! Thanks for any suggestions.

-Jeremy

[spanko]

In my reading I find that plate coral are a very resilient animal and the part that is skeleton will grow tissue over it again. The real problem here is can the diamond goby be trusted to not put sand on it again, the short answer is probably not. I have found that it is advisable even in a totally tissue free skeleton specimen to leave it in the tank as somewhere down the road it will put out "babies" in the tank. I am sorry to here that such a large plate has been damaged and hope that the future for this coral is brighter.

[jsgates]

The plate coral has been permanently moved to my new 10 ga. mini reef. I'm keeping the calcium level up in that tank and hoping for a full recovery. I have a dwarf Flame Angel that was recently added to my 80 Ga. reef and he does not bother any other coral............but for some reason he wants to nip at the plate coral. Even Dwarf Angels are not truly reef safe, but it's odd how they will not bother most corals and then pick on just one. One of the employees at the LFS has a dwarf in a 30 gallon JBJ and it does not bother anything but his Starburst Polyp. So I don't mind moving the plate to another tank.........it's a small trade-off for an amazing looking fish that otherwise causes not problems. The Diamond Goby kicks sand up on my Red Ball Sponge sometimes, but it's nothing a Turkey baster can't fix. Good to hear that the plate coral should recover.