Necrosis, leave it, or frag and pray?

[Ocelaris]

So I went on vacation and when I got home I had two frags lose some tissue, which then got covered with I assume diatoms or some red slime. Some outgrew it and have healed, but a few slowly succumbed to it and would get covered in algae. So besides the obvious question about why, what do you do in those situations, frag a good piece? When do you leave it to its own to recover?

I had some alkalinity issues that I dealt with, and parameters are back to normal, but if there's any biological reason, I would be interested to know any tricks.

 

[Velcro]

I usually frag a piece. Sometimes the frag makes it and sometimes it doesn't, but when something is RTNing and I don't frag it then I usually lose the whole thing. Just my limited experience.

 

[Robink]

I have had the opposite experience. I just let them do their thing. Every time I've tried to save one by fragging I lose it quicker. I have had several corals start to stn and then heal and grow back. Recently thought I lost my pink birdsnest, and it's back.

 

[Ocelaris]

My experience is that corals that were generally doing well beforehand, bounce back. But ones that were kinda limping along succumb. My Oregon tort loves the higher alk, but my gorilla milli lost the top half of the colony, but is hanging on. My tuxedo urchin actually ate the dead algae covered tops before I could get in there and it's done better. So I went in and chopped off some more dead branches so it could get more light. Crossing my fingers.

 

[Best Fish-Jake]

Unless I knew exactly why a coral is STN'ing or RTN'ing I would frag it. For instance, my hammer has been encroaching on a nearby monti and killed a small portion of it.. havnt fragged it in months and is still growing beautifully.