Open Brain Coral problems

[lost_at_sea]

Hey so i've had an Open Brain coral about 3in long for maybe a month or so now, today I saw my cleaner shrimp picking away at it and ripping chunks out of it...

I've put a egg crate cage around it to hopefully give it some chance to recoup but i'm kinda at a lose as to why this guy might not be making it?

It's currently on the substrate of my tank, standard 90, with 2x250 +2t5's for lighting (although lights need replacing) everything else seems to be doing really well in the tank.

This was the first i've seen of anything picking at the coral but I always had a suspicion it wasn't doing too well.. last night I cut up some shrimp and tried to make a direct feed to it's mouth... we'll see what happens..

Thoughts??

[J]

Low flow, med-high light, feed reef roids or any other food as such. Cleaner shrimp may just have been eating dead flesh or mucous.

[lost_at_sea]

The fleshy part that is neon green seems to be almost peeling off, that's waht the cleaner shrimp is pulling off, should I just let him do his thing?

his mouth is quite open I've read that's an indication it's looking to grab meaty food?

almost 1/2 of the neon green stuff is gone now, the other half looks okay... is that an indication that the other half of the coral is now just exoskelaton and is dead?

thanks!

[J]

  it sounds pretty far gone. Pics?

[PowderBlueTang]

From my experience keeping them, once they start deteriorating they are usually goners. Unless you get lucky.

[cn]

It sounds not too good for you. It may not going to make it. But even after all the flesh is gone, keep the skeleton in your tank anyway. There may be a very tiny flesh still survives and will grow back in future. It has happened to me before on my plate coral.

[lost_at_sea]

Figured... ah well.. my first loss... I thought that a cleaner shrimp would probably be doing more good then bad ie removing dead / dying tissues. 

I'll see if I can get some pics up soon but ya i'm pretty sure it's on it's way out.