Valuable advice from my LFS guy

[ShannyG]

He told me to harden my heart and start throwing away corals at the first serious signs of die off. In his experience, coral really can't be saved and he has lost entire tanks due to a chain reaction effect of one sick/dying/decomposing coral after another ruining water quality.
I had just thrown out my bubble coral that morning and it made me feel slightly less like a stone cold killer. Do you agree? Disagree? Opinions please.

 

[thegrun]

Depends on the coral and the cause of death. I've saved a lot of problematic corals, but some are not worth the time/risk.

 

[Sk8r]

Not so much. Depends. If a coral is going to die, it's not of old age---some of these, for all we know, could be 13000 years old...since they repro by dividing as well as sporing.

Was it hit and damaged? That could cause it: and it can recover. Has it popped out of its skeleton? Put it in a glass dish in good light in the tank and it can grow new skeleton. Did a branch break? Glue it to a new piece of old rock, and you've got another coral. If it's receding it's an important clue that your water quality or your light isn't up to snuff.

 

[AdamNC]

I have a neon green monti plate and an orange birdsnest that seemed to die off from too much light with my new Maxspect I got in July of this year. I split both off into small 1/2 inch frags that still had polyps. As of now they are making a real nice come back. I placed them in the shade for a few days then moved them to the sand in the open for a few weeks. Then when they all looked good I placed them where I want them. Corals have amazing resilience, you'd be surprised. So out of 2 frags I've acquired 7 new frags.

It sounds to me like he's just trying to insure future sales, but thats just my opinion.