Algae will not grow on a stony coral until it has actuallly lost tissue.
Many/most corals can easily recover from a bleaching (expelling their
xoozanthella)event. Its when they actually lose tissue, is when they are in
real trouble.. Many people confuse bleaching and and tissue loss and causes
more confusion when they are looking for help. Bleaching can be helped with
certain treatments, that will not help a coral from tissue loss, and visa
versa. some treatments that may help in tissue loss can harm a coral that has
simply bleached and would otherwise recover.

When hard corals die, they bleach first of all their zooanthellae, and then
green or brown algae will begin to grow on the skeleton.


Rod Buehler
www.asplashoflife.com