Tip of the Day – 6/18/2014

In yesterday’s tip, we scratched the surface on fragging corals to stop tissue loss, so today we are rolling with the punches to expand on that a little. While our focus yesterday was stopping the spread of a lethal gelatinous material on LPS corals, the idea of coral amputation, so to speak, can be applied across all types of corals undergoing all sorts of tissue death events. Whether your corals are undergoing inexplicable Slow Tissue Necrosis (STN) or Rapid Tissue Necrosis (RTN), cutting off the dying portion of tissue can save the rest of a colony from complete and utter destruction. This activity (both the necrosis and the fragging response) is common in SPS corals, and it’s not rare for a full grown colony to take a turn for the worst only to have an aquarist frag it up just to save some of the coral from certain death. Sometimes the fragging works extremely well, and other times it just speeds up the necrosis. And with mixed results combined with lots of uncertainty as to why the process is happening in the first place, many hobbyists just sit back and helplessly watch their prized corals melt away into oblivion.