is it a must to cut it?

[DTz]

hey guys.. im battling abit of a dino outbreak. but all my sps was growing well until i changed to radion g5 and ran it at 70% out of the box. i think the light was too much that quite a few of my sps have burnt tips. to make matters worse, algae is starting to grow on the tips. question is do i have to always cut the tips in order for the sps to heal or i can just leave it as it is and hope that things get better? pls advice

 

[AcroNem]

I would cut it off, algae growing on exposed skeleton could irritate tissue next to it.

 

[RCS82]

What kind of lighting did you have before? How high off the water are/were the new and old units?

 

[DTz]

What kind of lighting did you have before? How high off the water are/were the new and old units?

i was using the zetlight qmaven 2 zt6800ii(was running 400+ par) lights before changing. it was 6 inches off the water. radion is mounted 8 inches and at 70% my top sps gets bout 300+ par. but most got burnt n started bleaching or burnt tips

 

[DaAznGuy]

I would wait until you see the sps back to normal health and growing before you clip the tip. If it’s at a stunted phase. Algae will just regrow on top.

 

[ThePurple12]

You don't have to cut the tips, just blow the algae off with a pipette or something. You'll probably have to do it daily until the algae stops growing back.

 

[DTz]

You don't have to cut the tips, just blow the algae off with a pipette or something. You'll probably have to do it daily until the algae stops growing back.

did it work like that for u ? ive been trying it for a week. but it seems to grow back everytime ive tried cutting too. my rainbow tenius rtn after i cut the tips

 

[ThePurple12]

Yeah, it worked, but it took a while. I think it was around two weeks.

I think what happenes is when the coral recovers from whatever change it experienced, it grows over the algae.

 

[andrewey]

I've never cut the tips for burnt/bleached tips and the coral regrew back over the exposed skeleton in time. It definitely takes some time to grow over (first for the coral to heal from the original shock/insult). I would gently try and pipette the algae off each day, but not so forceful that you disturb the coral any more than it already was

 

[vetteguy53081]

Pics??
Need to determine if burnt or dead.

 

[BradB]

Burnt tips are from high Alk, not lighting. You definitely don't need to remove the dead coral. Can that help? Maybe, but it can make things worse too. When in doubt, do nothing.

 

[ThePurple12]

Burnt tips are from high Alk, not lighting. You definitely don't need to remove the dead coral. Can that help? Maybe, but it can make things worse too. When in doubt, do nothing.

It can be from pretty much anything that causes stress. It happened for me when I upgraded my tank and another time when I changed lighting.

 

[kyleinpdx]

If you do end up cutting anything off, I highly recommend covering the freshly cut area with superglue gel. It will help to stop any additional tissue recession. Might sound weird, but the fraggers and old timers can vouch for its effectiveness.

 

[DTz]

Burnt tips are from high Alk, not lighting. You definitely don't need to remove the dead coral. Can that help? Maybe, but it can make things worse too. When in doubt, do nothing.

pretty sure my alk is very stable. running trident for the past 6 mths. highest 8.15 lowest 7.95

 

[Surfzone]

pretty sure my alk is very stable. running trident for the past 6 mths. highest 8.15 lowest 7.95

Do you double check your trident. I have one and it will say that my alk is at 8.8 but it is actually 7.5 on Hanna. I'm beginning to not trust the trident and just go with manual testing.

 

[BradB]

I suppose anything is possible. But I'd be surprised to see burnt tips under 10 dHk (is that what unit you meant)? I have killed coral with too much light, which is bleaching the whole coral, or gradual fading from white at the highest light, to healthy coral in the shade. Burnt tips usually show up as very healthy coral with completely dead (not bleached) tips - very easy to draw a line between the 2 parts. I would not be the least bit surprised to find an inaccurate alk test kit.

 

[DTz]

I suppose anything is possible. But I'd be surprised to see burnt tips under 10 dHk (is that what unit you meant)? I have killed coral with too much light, which is bleaching the whole coral, or gradual fading from white at the highest light, to healthy coral in the shade. Burnt tips usually show up as very healthy coral with completely dead (not bleached) tips - very easy to draw a line between the 2 parts. I would not be the least bit surprised to find an inaccurate alk test kit.

Did a test with salifert kit and it matches trident reading. So pretty sure its not alk spike

 

[infinite0180]

hey guys.. im battling abit of a dino outbreak. but all my sps was growing well until i changed to radion g5 and ran it at 70% out of the box. i think the light was too much that quite a few of my sps have burnt tips. to make matters worse, algae is starting to grow on the tips. question is do i have to always cut the tips in order for the sps to heal or i can just leave it as it is and hope that things get better? pls advice

Did your sps tips heal? I turned my new lighting up too fast and some tips are looking rough. I hope they heal up. I lost a few small colonies that totally bleached out. Im soo bummed out!

 

[92Miata]

Dude upgraded his lights and immediately got burnt tips. It's not alk, it's the lights. Horses, not zebras.

(How corals deal with light, alk, and nutrients are all related, and interdependent - and he may need to run lower alk or higher nutrients with the higher light levels - but it's absolutely the light change that caused this).

 

[homer1475]

Problem being though, his lights didn't increase. They actually decreased.

Op stated his original lights put out 400+ par. New lights put out only 300+ par. Thats a 100+ par decrease not increase.