Fragging Corals 101 - A Basic Tutorial For Beginners

yeah i saw a youtube of the zoa. I think I'll try my luck with the leathers Biff mentioned. Also on things like hammers and frogspawn and ways of maintaining them. To not get over growth to where its out grows your tank. Whats the best way to brake it down to keep it from running ramped? I don't want to be a butcher of it either. any suggestions will help. Thanks all for the info.

Hammers and frogspawn are branching corals. Very easy to frag. Just take a pair of bone cutters or wire cutters and cut it where the branches come together. As long as the polyp is clear of that area, you wont hurt it.

GassyMon said:

what about fragging a Kenya or Kayaka? Trees. Would you just cut off a branch and supperglue it?

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Superglue probably won't stick to it very well. You are better off tying to to a rock using a needle and thread. Once it's attached, clip the thread.

Lots of great info here. Thanks RC!! To think I was handling my zoa without gloves, and let my son put it in the tank where he wanted it with his bare hands.

Yes, RC has provided this forum with a lot of useful information. I would hate to see him leave. :(

dcantucson said:

Yes, RC has provided this forum with a lot of useful information. I would hate to see him leave. :(

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Me too! Maybe if we're lucky their disagreement or whatever will be resolved when heads have time to cool. I know there's been a few times when my wife & I have said things to each other we regret when we've had time to cool!

+1 Great Video

Haha. I just watched them and I have to admit you sounded like an ass for the Trumpet in #4/5. "They're out of the water, so what?" "I just fragged them, beat them up and threw them in with no acclimation. Terrible. I guarantee they'll be fine in 24 hours."

I laughed. Not acclimating isn't the end of the world. Especially if it's two tanks run off of the same water, salt, etc...the water will be pretty close to the same. That made my day.

On another note, thanks for the information! It was great and the videos were...erm...will be a great help.

I have a ? about what to do with a frag that has die off on the lower half. A while back I got some rubble from the LFS to jumpstart a fuge I built. When I got it in I noticed some hard coral frags that were not completely dead so I took them out attached them to some rubble and put them in my main tank (for the better lighting) they didn't look very good for about a week and started to die but didn't quite make it. Now the portion that is still alive looks actually really cool their polyps opened fully and they have colored up to a nice green. What I want to know is do I cut them off from the dead portion and remount them or do I leave them and see if they will recover the dead portions. There is algea growth on the dead portions and it looks like it will not grow over it. There is new growth but it is small. Hope these pics help. This is just one of them there is one more like this. I also have a frag with multiple types of coral on it that you may have a recommendation for. I'll post a pic of that soon. I have never kept SPS or any hards for that matter so not sure what to do with them.

Thanks
Ryan

Here is the other coral should I cut off the head or leave it. Just saw this was a sticky sorry if I should have made a new thread.

The last picture are zoas. They are a soft coral and don't grow their own skeleton. They spread on rocks. I would move it to the rock work to give it room to grow.

The first set of pictures is some kind of SPS. They require high lighting. You can cut the tips off and glue them onto something if you like. Or you can leave them on the stalks. If the conditions are right, the polyps will eventually grow and start branching.

Yah I know the zoas on the last one. The sps is the lighter coral covering the top ill give a closer pic. the skeloton below the polyps is what was left after some die off. If that helps for ID. I originally got this piece for the zoas. At the LFS this sps was bleached and i thought it was dead but I got it in my tank and it slowly started to open and "color up" (if you can say that it is a white coral) :) Yep going to frag a piece of the zoas that is barly hanging on ther and put it on a bigger rock.