coral help

[shobby]

I am dumb, dumb, dumb.
I was cleaning the rocks in the aquarium, scrubbing them with a bucket of fresh water. Cleaning off the hair algae. My husband came in and saw the rock with some coral on it and said it needed to be cleaned also. Did not think twice about it, pulled it out scrubbed it off put it back. It has not opened up since. Did this before with no problem, but I forgot that it was plain water not salt water. Will it come back out or did I do indefinite damage?
Shell

 

[reefkprz]

it may recover, it may not. 50/50 chance.
when removing your rock for scrubbing you should use tank water to scrub the algae off with that way your not killing microfauna and bacteria with fresh water. there are a lot of micro inverts that live in your rock that find fresh water almost instantly fatal. you are not doing your tank any favors by scrubbing your rock in fresh water. if anything the die off from the scrubbing is fueling the algae your trying to defeate.

 

[shobby]

I usually do clean them with tank water, but I decided to drain at least half the water, being that I am over run with algae, so I went and used all my buckets for new water not planning to scrub, but my husband came in and decided he wanted to help, so I used a large pot with water, not using my brain, went for it.
Shell

 

[flower]

Bummer, live ansd learn it happens to us all.
What type of coral? How long was it exposed to freshwater?

 

[shobby]

Notpositive but I believe it is a colt,looks like it. Maybe five minutes tops, probably not even.
Shell

 

[hunt]

Dont worry ive done something way dumber, i was doing stuff in my tank so i wanted to put my LR in a bucket of water, forgot to add salt

So when i finnally realized it was too late, half my live rock was dead and caused an ammonia spike in my tank, wich killed my royal gramma. Well i try to live without regrets,(i regret this) but i see the bright side, this was when i took a serious interest in my tank and really started taking care of it and reading up on what i had and how i was doing things,(i was doing alot wrong)
Anyways the moral of my story is to always learn from your mistakes.

 

[vinnyraptor]

find the source of the algae. constantly removing rock and "scrubbing" it isnt good. its usually nitrates or phosphates, start there. good luck!

 

[flower]

Colts are pretty tough...unless it turns brown leave it alone, it may bounce back. Slimming up is normal when they are stressed so that is no indicator.

 

[shobby]

It looks like it may bounce back, it was a little puffier yesterday than it had been. Not as large as it was but that is a good sign.
Shell