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Innovative Marine Aquariums

4/19/04 - Propagation


Orange Crush

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Orange Crush

With the price of store bought corals off the charts, and the rising popularity of reef clubs, many of us have propagated our own corals to share/sell.

 

What corals have you fragged, how, and how successful were you?

 

What have you tried unsuccessfully?

 

Any special hints/tips/tricks?

 

Share them here!

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Orange Crush

The only coral i've tried fragging is my (former... :( ) ricordia yumas. You can click on my link below to see them. Anyway, it was simple as cake. The first time I tried it, scared to kill the whole thing, I just cut off a slice from the side. Voila: one coral became two.

 

The second time, I was a bit more daring. The ric was moving to a place where I didn't want it to go, so I lopped off the top part, and cut the rest in half. I'm told you could do it in quarters, but it wasn't that big to begin with. Within a few weeks, I had three fully recovered ricordias.

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Obligatory post:

 

In a month or two, or maybe three, I'd like to frag my paraancora. In a nano, I think that one polyp is more than enough. I will probably just snap one of the heads off and give it to a friend.

 

Steve

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The Charleston, SC reef club here trades coral frags all the time after it's meetings. So far, i've personally fragged mushroom polyps (green hairy, ricordea florida, discosoma, etc.), cinnamon polyps (now banned from import, $30 a polyp on ebay, wow!), a finger leather, xenia, GSP and pink pocilliopora sps coral.

 

I think sps corals are the easiest to frag. You take a nice coral head and cut it up with a pair of heavy pruning shears/scissors and crazy glue the base of each frag to a shell or chunk of rock. That's all it takes. Just mist the coral head down with saltwater from a spray mister to keep it moist and cut it up outside the tank. Put the frags in a little tray of salwater while the crazy glue sets up, then give them to your friends in little baggies of saltwater five minutes later.

 

Mushroom corals are easy, just cut them in half or in pie shaped slices making sure each slice contains a portion of the base. GSP and Xenia grow and encrust so quickly, it's easy to snip off portions and attach them where you want them. GSP has a rubbery matte which can be cut and the pieces can be rubber banded to another rock for a week or two until they attach.

 

For Xenia, take an empty yogurt cup and cut it about halfway down. Fill it halfway with chunky reef rubble or shells and snip off as many of the waving "arms" as you'd like into the cup, then cover the top with some bridal veil netting and a rubber band. The pieces will attach to the rocks within about two-three weeks all on their own. The snipped off areas will re-grow into new arms on the original colony. Mushroom polyps can also be propogated in this way.

 

Leathers will produce side branches and buds which can be cut off from the parent colony. I've had better luck using the toothpick method for these corals. Cut off the piece that you want and treat it with a little lugol's solution, then spear it at the base with half to 1/3 of a plastic toothpick. You can then stick the other end of the toothpick into liverock or in the substrate and the coral will stay put until it heals up. If you want to remove the toothpick afterwords, simply twist it in your fingers in a circle and extract.

 

BTW, using iodide liquid or lugol's solution is very beneficial to healing coral frags (except maybe GSP) and preventing infections to both the frag and the host coral. Coral frags should be allowed to recooperate in low flow areas in your tank under low lighting until they heal up. I also don't feed coral frags (if a feeding type) until they heal.

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I am hoping my xenia and GSP grow fast enough so I can frag them for my up and coming smaller nano and then sell them back to the LFS.

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ninhsavestheday

i once flicked a zoo polyp. it came off.. and glued it on a rock! BAM INSTANT ZOO FRAG! (i would recommend flicking your zoos though)

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can ric florida just be chopped off at the stalk near the rock? I have some that are just too darn big, want to get rid of them.

None of them have more than one mouth.

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Originally posted by MGXsport

I am hoping my xenia and GSP grow fast enough so I can frag them for my up and coming smaller nano and then sell them back to the LFS.

 

be careful of what you wish for. Healthy xenia and GSP colonies can take over a tank quickly.

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  • 2 weeks later...
quandary_23

Yeah, I fragged my pom pom xenia twice. Sold one and gave the other away to a local reefer. I have fragged mushrooms and zoos also.

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