Hey guys,
Its time for a little update...
After I bought the two Acro's and since I was on break from grad school, I decided to redo my aquascape once more...
I moved the rocks so that the rock with the mushrooms is all the way on the bottom, and turned the other rocks to give a little bit more surface area to allow for more corals in the future. I also secured the Acros in place and created a lot more caves than before (in preparation for more fish in the future)
Here is the end result,
The FTS
And some close ups:
You can see that I gave the Captain America's its own dedicated rock so that it can grow out and be fragged later without spreading to the main rock work
The Monti and the Tri Color
Caves and Mushrooms
Another project I took on is fragging my zoa colony because after a lot of research and inspection it seemed that the frag rock they were on made it difficult for them to spread out and grow (the zoa's would be stuck in the grooves of the rock and when new polyps would grow, they would either die off, or choke out the older ones)
You can see the grooves in this picture
WARNING: Fragging Zoa's could be extremely dangerous because of the polytoxin they release, so if you take on the challenge, make sure to wear gloves and protective eye wear (in my pictures you dont see the later, but I had the glasses)...
The tools
Close Up
What we have: eye protection, gloves, 2 tubs, hammer, nail, a blade, and glue
The Colony
Sorry there arent pictures of the fragging process, but I didnt want to get any polytoxin on my phone or anywhere else for that matter, so I did not take pictures during the fragging process. Basically, I put the nail in between the zoa polyps and hammered down slowly until the rock chipped apart, then I used the blade to cut any polyps that were not loose.
Here is the end result
Some Close Ups
I used the glue to fold over and attach any of the polpys that were not attached to the rock and but just attached through the tissue to other polyps
You let the frags sit in the container for about 15 minutes so they can stop releasing any polytoxins, then move it to another container and do the same. Do this with the water from the tank to minimize stress on the polyps
Keep in mind, that you still want to keep your gloves on until you've completely finished moving the frags into the 2nd container (I took pictures here because I took one glove, but still used only one hand with the glove to move them). While the frags are resting in their 2nd container, clean up the whole area and rinse off any tools thoroughly. Polytoxin is water soluble, so it will wash away, but just as a precaution, do not reuse the gloves, or the tubberware (you can save the tubs for future fragging).