Cutting Up My Corals

[sandlot13]

Okay, so today I finally took the plunge into some aquaculture! I basically took that giant echino I had and took my dremel tool to it.......WOW, what an experience. It feels really weird just hacking up a living organism, but hey, everything looks like it's healing well enough, so Im kind of excited!

 

I took some pictures of the before and after.....

 

Before the whole ordeal, in my tank..... lovely coral actually, with a rasberry coloring that has blue/teal tones mixed in with some really cool golden eyes! My pictures dont do it justice.

 

Heres the shot of the coral before hand getting ready to get chopped.... it's about the size of a third of a regular computer keyboard

 

Just a shot of the coral with the dremel tool on my "workbench"..... dont tell my roommate what I do on his pingpong table.

 

I just kinda dove into this; I had read a lot online about people fragging off pieces of coral before, so I didnt think much of it. Hahahaha, wow, it was a learning experience!

 

First things first... if you are going to be using any sort of cutting device that is moving at high speeds, wear saftey glasses! Nothing is worse then ground up coral flesh stinging your eye. ALso, do not wear anything that is valuable to you or you have to wear on a date soon, because it will get the spray from the cutting action all over it no matter how hard you try to prevent it. Its kind of gunky, and to be honest, smells bad. I guess all in all, its better to be fully prepared and not have to worry about anything but the health of the coral while you do all of this.

 

Oh, and dont have your cell phone with you.... I had mine on me, which as soon as I made the first incision decided to ring. I didnt answer it, but it definitly distracted me because it's a natural reaction to answer a phone when it rings! haha

 

After the cuts were made, I swished it in some tank water I had set in a tupperwear, then carried the freshly cut colony and the two frags back to my tank. As you can see, even with trying to clean the cuts, the corals still werent all that happy about it.

 

Colony after it had its makeover....

 

Frag number 1.....

 

Frag number 2......obviously a little less planning went into this one. Note to self: always have a preconcieved notion as to WHERE you will be cutting, dont just make it up as you go.

 

Anywho, thats my little tidbit of action going on here...... just taking my first steps into sharing my corals with other reefers!

[sandlot13]

and please ignore the dirty glass

[mvite]

Good job! Sometimes you gotta just take the plunge.

 

How are they looking now? Do they eat for you?

 

When I fragged an echino--I had trouble with it growing out. When I had it on egg crate, the new growth just curled under the coral. I put them on sand beds in tupperware--and that seems to force them to grow outward better.

 

Again--good work! And there's nothing quite like the smell of cutting coral, is there? Especially one like an echino--it smells like you are cooking it--YECK!!!

[NippySan]

I find that allowing each frag to have a full mouth allow it to heal and grow out fastest. I dunno if ones without mouths don't survive, ive never really tried to keep those.

 

isnt it amazing how spiney and hard the wild growth is? You can always tell a wild colony b/c the skeleton is much much harder and stronger. Same goes for Acroporidae.