Sorry to here about the colt. I have had mine attach to the plastic at times before as well, usually if that happens I just peel them off. If you were in PA I would give you a free frag of mine, attached of course.
FWIW, I never buy corals that are not attached at the LFS. Unless it is a freshly cut SPS that is easy to glue down.
From what I understand colts are extremely hard to get attached to rocks. Garf recommends a plastic tooth pick down the center of the colt. This thread used another method: http://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/showthr ... =frag+colt
The leathers (if it's a leather) can look terrible and come back like nothing happened. I suggest you keep it in the tank unless you see pieces comming off of it. My wife almost persuaded me to throw away what later became her favorite coral - my leather (which, BTW, now takes about 1/4 of my 90 gal - it's huge and has a 4-5" radius where nothing grows around it - she doesn't let me frag it! - on the other hand it's by far my largest coral in the tank).
do you have any pics of the coral? i have wondered the same thing before about cutting off bad parts. i have cut pieces before because i figured i didn't want it poisoning the rest of the tank. you have to keep the big picture in mind as to how much toxin it could release and if it can be healed. i hope all things go in your favour
Wow I swear this thing is crazy. I thought it was a goner, couldn't see it and the container was rotated 90 degrees (the work of snails i bet). 5 min. ago I looked a little closer and saw it (whats left of it), from the what I could see it was either a) all the way retracted or b) not much left. Either way it's normal color from what I see, I'm afraid to touch it LOL. 8O :|
When I get pieces of Colt whether they fall off or I cut, I just find a decent sized rock and push it into the rubble with rock on top of the pieces that is cut. In a few days it will attach itself.