Smelly Coral

[bjs]

Please do not be harsh when I say this...
I have somewhat asked this question on NEW HOBBYIST but thought REEFS would give good answers. Recently my fiance went diving and brought back a nice piece of coral.. He thinks its just a skeleton.. It was hard, no smell, no sign of life.. Well..... I cleaned it with a solution of clorox and water and cleaned it with very hot water for approx. 20-30 min. I put it in the tank and the next day the water was very cloudy and smelled. I took the coral out and placed it on my deck where it has been for a day or so. (Letting it air out).. Im now thinking that it was alive and feel terrible.. But, I would like to have it in my tank.. It still smells.. What should I try next??? Thank you!

 

[buzz]

A lot of corals have hard outer "shells" like tubes, and the actual creature is inside that.
First the comment that you knew was coming...your fiancee should not have taken anything off a reef, alive or dead. Even dead, corals are home to a lot of sea life. Picking apart reefs is a bad idea, and there are some stiff penalties for doing so.
It is always possible it was alive, but if it stayed out of water, it wasn't alive for too long. And at that, clorox and boiling water would have finished the job.
If there is no sign of anything dead inside it, and it was hard, it may very well have been calcified. After bleaching it, did you happen to de-chlorinate it before putting it in your tank?
If something was in it still, leave it outside until it decomposes. Shouldn't take too long. Then bleach it again. Of course I certainly am not advocating that you keep it (for disclaimer purposes...heh heh).