Cut Dead Skeleton from SPS or Leave it Alone?

[sedor]

I have a few pieces of SPS that have been through some traumatic events in my tank in the past. One is a millepora that lost most of the tissue on one side of the frag, the other is a larger colony green slimer that has a lot of STN on the base of the coral and it climbs pretty high up on some of the limbs.

Everything has been back to normal and the corals seem to be doing fine for the last 6 months or so and although I am seeing good polyp extension I haven't seen very much growth at all. Would I be better off the just cutting off all the dead parts of the skeleton even if it would mean being left with some very small frags, or does this not change things one way or another?

 

[jdm1114]

Its really up to you, but it will most likely grow faster if you cut off the dead branch. New branches with grow from the point you cut it, just make sure its a nice clean cut.

 

[spsboy]

You're better off cutting it just into the flesh. If you can put a dab of on the freshly cut tip, it will often help it heal quicker and protect it from infection.

 

[Whisperer]

If it's at the tip, cut. If at the base, leave them be.

 

[Allmost]

From my experience, after some SPS get stung or loose tissue for whatever reason, if thing (water) goes back to normal and high quality... it will grow its tissue back, on the same skeleton,

but if there is unsightly algae growing ont he dead branches then I guess cutting it would be a good choice, just be sure not to stress the whole colony more