Frags or Colonies? what grows faster

[cocojakes]

For the pure purpose of fragging, with x amount of time to get the most growth, does it make sense to let a colony grow on its own for that whole time, and then frag it up into smaller pieces, or to frag it up at the start of the time, and continue to frag it as each frag grows?

For example, a small colony of 5 heads of Acan. does it make more sense, if I want to have the most number of heads in a year, to split it into 5 individual frags, and whenever each one grows a new head, frag it as well. or to let the colony grow for a year, and then frag it into however many heads it has by then? Has any research been done into this to see which is a faster method for aquaculture?

 

And does it hold true for SPS such as an acro, would it make more sense to let the large colony grow and then cut it into inch long segments, or let a bunch of inch long segments grow to two inches, and then cut each one in half.

 

Any ideas and discussion is appreciated Looking to start growing my collection of frags a bit and trying to decide if its best to have a few large colonies in my frag tank, that I frag a few pieces off of once in a while, or have a ton of small frags that I continue to split whenever they grow big enough.

[PiscesFish]

imo, it varies between the type of corals you're trying to frag. For instance, it would be better to have fragments of branching Euphyllias (besides torch on this one and possibly Octospawn) because they can grow heads but can also split heads.

 

With sps, i recommend fragging a branch off a mother colony at a time that has baby branches coming in.

 

But this is just a throw in the dark honestly