Fragging Frogspan
 

I have an awesome brown frogspan in need of fragging - any local reefers in Langley area interested in helping me frag can take the frags away. I need to downsize the coral by more than half - probably looking at 30+ heads (or 5 or so large branches). Although I understand it to be fairly straightforward, I don't have the clippers and haven't done it before.

Also - does anyone know if losing half this coral will cause a bloom or any other negative activity in my tank? It started out the size of my thumbnail probably 6 years ago but exploded when I changed my lights from PCs to Kessils last year.

Fragging frogspawn is very easy. You can use a hacksaw, or coral cutters, and just cut between the heads. Just try and cut as far away from the flesh as possible. If you dont damage any tissue, it will be open 10 minutes after you cut it. It shouldn't effect your tank or have any negative effects, maybe positive ones though.

Thank you Slyguy - do you think that regular garden handheld trimmers will work or is it better to take a trip to J&L for coral cutters?

yea they will probably work, depending on how thick the stock on your hammer coral is. You can pretty much use anything you want to cut it. Cutting with a saw is obviously better, but using side cutters, garden trimmers, or coral cutters all will work semi decent. Just avoid crushing the stock to high up towards the head or it could effect the coral internally.

I bet it's an inch around ... I did buy a small tree branch saw but worried that putting too much pressure on the coral branch would cause the entire coral to break off the rock ... I don't want to damage the coral

Hammer coral is pretty tough stuff, It can take a bit of handling and abuse. Its really not that hard, just find something that will make a decent cut and cut between the branches. After you do the first one you will see what I'm talking about.