Snip all of the tips?

I have about 20 sps (mostly frags) in the tank, the rest are still doing fine. Also, the lps, anemone, ect., doing fine.
 
The corals you clip should not be dying. From my experience, even a healthy, small frag can be clipped and be fine. I've accidentally fragged a lot of corals in my tank,(including week old frags, even my wild colonies) and they all do fine. Something else isn't right. What kind of salt are you using? Calcium reactor or 2-part? Maybe some element is lacking??? Iodine?
 
What symptoms are the corals showing? Did they ever heal up after you clipped them? How long ago did you do it?
 
update coming on my micropthalma soon... i'm not looking at it right this second, but iirc since clipping it, i have 8-9 growing tips where i only had 2 dormant stubs before
 
This makes perfect sense that this would/should work.

My only thoughts on it are that since some SPS are more sensitive than others and that this should be done more systematically or dliberatly less often on SPS that are known slow growers. Since you never know how much stress things can tolerate in any given system.

And that leads to the other thought that as someone else posted prior, that stable and almost perfect water parameters would be recommended to prevent losses as one poster in this thread experienced.
 
Sorry about the delay in responding. The symptoms on the ones that responded poorly are little (or no) polyp extension, after a week or so followed by some color change and now they have what appear to be patches of brown algae growng on the stems that were clipped. Should I cut off all of the parts where they are discolored or just wait and see what else happens? They haven't turned totally white, although they have faded, and there is still some polyp extension, but too small for me to see, I can only see it in pics. I'll see if I can get some on here.
 
12-25-08

micropthalmacrop.jpg


4-9-09

SDC11556.jpg
 
I think everyone should send me the tips that they are cutting so that I can verify that you are really cutting them. Especially on the LEs. :D
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14454213#post14454213 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SunnyX
So, anything new to update?

I know a couple of you guys had experimented with and was curious to see your results.


it Just works.... cut one tip get 3-6...:eek2:

i had a blue milli frag that was dormant for almost a year, NO growth just encrusting, then i snipped the tip and finally i have new growth.

now that you have a frag tank i would make a point of take 1-2 frags a month from all your corals, you will have tons to trade for cool new corals and you can get the slower growers to pick up their growth rate..
 
oh right pics, while this is nothing spectacular, these tips are hard earned, this coral was totally dormant.

Blue milli
After
IMG_4476.jpg



Pink milli
Before
IMG_0504.jpg


After
IMG_4525.jpg
 
Dont' have pics but I snip tips often. My blue tort used to grow fast and now slowed to a crawl. Snipped the tips a few weeks ago and every tip is growing at least 2 shoots. The tips that weren't snipped still have not grown.
 
Approximately how much do you 'snip' off each tip, and are you able to mount these snippings on plugs, or is anyone mounting them proximal the base of the mother colony?
 
I think its because of the way corals grow. The polyp on the end is like the lead polyp and it always stays at the end of the stick as the colony grows. I've seen this in a video about coral reefs called blue planet. They had awesome time lapse videos of acropora growing.

Cutting this off must leave you with a few polyps that will then take over that role of lead polyp on their own branches.
 
I just barely scratch the tips off with a razor blade, and there isn't enough coming off to put on a plug. If you frag off an actual frag that is 1/4 inch or more, then it takes longer for the coral to start the increased growth. When I used to frag that much or more off I would put them on plugs.
 
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