colt fragging

[fishtender]

Hi all,

My name is Howard, and the latest member to your forum. I have all sorts of wuestions and I am sure with all the members here in this dite, my answers will be found.
I've only been doing satlwater for about 9 months now and am still very new to it all.

My first question to you is:
How do I frag a colt coral?

I purchased it when it was the dize of a baseball and it is now about 18 inches tall and 10 inches wide. It has literally taken over the left side of my 55g. I'm thinking I could frag and trade with my LFS. Mind you, I have several different species of coral, but never attempted to frag. I am to affraid to hurt them or worse. That woudl be tragic since I am very fond of them all.

Thanks

Howard

[Chuck S]

Colt corals are rather easy. You can snip off some pieces with a sharp clean razor or restrict the pieces with twine etc. There can be fragged most every way there is. Snipping off and securing the cuttings on some gravel in a tray where they can heal and grow onto the loose gravel is best. They can then be super glued to rock via the gravel/rock connection.

[tendar]

Chuck pretty much covered it.

[fishtender]

<font color="blue"> </font>Well it sure enough sounds easy. A bit like cutting off your own thumb though. Do you suppose the coral feels a lot of pain? Isn't it going to "bleed" in some way, and if so is thay toxic to my tank? I have a DSB, will that work for securing it? How long should I expect it to take to anchor itself to the new surface? and lastly, How much is too much? Should I frag just 10% or up to 50%?

Thanks
Howard

[Chuck S]

I wouold begin by taking a small one inch cutting and doing a test run. If you can take the coral out of the tank and in a bowl and cut it would be best. I would place the cutting in a small fruit basket weighted down with some sand inside or something to keep it from sliding elsewhere. You can place some sand in there for it to attach to.

[Pirate]

I gotta go with Chuck on removing the piece to do your cutting. When cut in the tank most soft corals do excrete a protective slime, and some can be toxic, although I have never seen it be so bad as to kill or poison anything in the tank.

[Ninjafish]

Hey there,

Omegatron, that's great info and I’d like to try this with my colt, but I have 3 questions - maybe rookie questions, but none the less... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

1) Does the cut part of the cutting have to be on the gravel, or will it attach if it is laying on it's side?

2) How big should the pieces of gravel be? i.e. bigger than the base of the cutting? Or will the cutting adhere to multiple pieces of gravel?

3) How long does it usually take a cutting to attach?

[tendar]

1. Laying on its side is just fine it will attach either way.
2. I dont believe the sand needs to be that big but Crushed coral would probably be good.
3. I have seen them take any where from a week to a month to attach to anything.

[Ninjafish]

Cool /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I'll give that a try.

Thanks

[tendar]

Good luck they can be one of the more pain in the rears to get attached but are worth the effort once done.