Trimming corals question

[Darth Wader]

Hello everybody. I have a quick question for anybody who is willing to give me an answer or even just some suggestions.
I have a fairly large colt coral and a few other soft corals that I think I will need to trim soon. They seem to be growing at an unbelievable rate. I have read that people do this when corals get to large. My question is how do you trim the coral? I dont wanna hurt it and end up killing it. If anybody knows how to or has any tips on how I can trim it down let me know.
Thanks,
Darth Wader

[Geofrog]

I recently had to trim a Xenia colony that was getting too close to my anemone. As it was on a large peice of rock that I couldn't remove from the tank, I trimmed it in the display. Run lots of carbon if doing that as the coral will most likey secrete a toxic slime. Use a sharp razor and cut it with one clean cut with a cut surface area as small as possible to minimize infection.

Anoth method, takes time though, is to use a zip tie and slowly tighten it each day until the coral detaches itself.

[Delphinus]

Colts are easy to cut - the tricky part is getting the cut piece to attach to a new piece of substrate.

One method is put the cutting in an area of low flow (even inside a small bucket of some kind) in the tank along with rubble and let it reattach on its own.

Another method is stick a toothpick in the bottom and then elastic or fishing line over the toothpick over rubble. Usually elastic or fishing line over the coral itself just cuts the coral more and doesn't work so well for reattachment.

There are other methods too.

There is probably some risk in that the cut could introduce an infection to the coral .. other than "use a clean razor blade" I'm not sure what to suggest to minimize that risk.

good luck!

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

My most successful method with Colts is to stick the cut off "arm" into a hole in some LR or in a giant barnacle and then leave them in a lower flow area. Within a week or two, it should fasten itself. The toothpick method never worked for me. Just seemed to cut through them.

Anthony

[Darth Wader]

Thanks everybody for your replies. I'm not really to concerned with getting the frag's to attach themselves to anything, I'm more concerned with the actual trimming of corals and keeping the host coral alive.
Any more techniques people have on trimming corals would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
wader

[Snappy]

A PVC coupler works well, just put the rock you want the frag to attach to at the bottom and put the coupler over it and the colt inside (low flow of course). Don't worry about the mother piece , I personally just use some sharp scissors and cut off what & where I want and never had a problem.