Fragging Frogspawn
 

I have a frogspawn that I need to frag however it seems it is growing flesh over it's once bare stalk. How would I frag this? Would I still just dremmel it in half? Or is this going to cause problems? Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Chad,
It sounds like maybe you have some baby buds sprouting at the main branch, you can check at night or early morning just after the lights come on to varify, you will see tiny new crowns developing.
If it's budding new crowns then simply wait until they are about the size of an almond and then you can break them off with some gentle needle nose pliers and glue them to small pieces of live rock.
If your main colony is propagating by division then it's a whole different ball game, as you should not try to cut the main crown in half-it will seperate all by itself over some time. Once the main crown has formed two individual crowns, you can then cut the branch between the two crowns.
Simply cutting a main crown down through the center of the live tissue will most likely result in two dead pieces of coral due to infection or stress.
I have fragged my frogspawn about 30+ times now and I always let the coral do the seperating first, then I just split the crown at the base of the branch or I pluck off smaller developed buds from the sides of the main branches.

Goodluck :mrgreen:

Thanks for the reply, but perhaps I did not explain myself properly.

I orginaly had a 2 headed frogspawn which has split into 4 heads. on the base right beneath the original "crowns" are baby buds.. woohoo :biggrin: , But there was also a stony stalk with no tissue on it before. I could basicly holy onto the bottom of the frogspawn and not touch any flesh. But now a white smooth flesh is growing down from the crowns and covering the whole stock of this branching frogspawn. To the point now where the whole coral is fleshy. (there are new buds forming everywhere on this flesh).

I will try to get a pic today and show it to you.

Thanks for the response!

reply
 

Thats right, its just like cutting a flower from a stem in a matter of speaking. Never cut a bud in half, I learned the hard way with a hammer coral, it will die.

Re: reply
 

I need to get a picture taken, cuz I am not cutting through a bud. Tonight I will post a pic.. clear this all up :biggrin:

Chad,
Like I said above, frag the baby buds in a month or so or you can cut between to individual mother crowns :biggrin:

If the flesh of one of the bigger mother crowns is spreading down the branch I wouldn't cut that either.

Only cut or break a branch when an ENTIRE new crown has fully developed and not just when there's some new flesh growth on one of the main branches. Chances are this coral is starting to propagate it's base, and you don't want to disturb this growth until a new crown has formed :biggrin:

Re: reply
 

I have a hammer coral that's U-shaped, but one night when I was aquascaping I moved the coral to the corner of the tank and left it overnight. When I came back the next night, I noticed I buried the curved part of the U in the substrate, so this part died. Now my hammer has two separate fleshy parts on each end of the U-shape, and the skeleton in the middle. Looks pretty crappy.

I was thinking about breaking the hammer in half, but will this kill it? It is all one long coral (it would be like 10 inches long if it were straight), but if you say that you should not cut the bud in half. Is this considered a bud?

Bueller? Bueller?

If there is no tissue on the part in question, then there is no tissue to damage. Ideally I would wait until the two sides completely healed before cutting in half.

reply
 

I wouldn't recomend fragging a hammer at all but if you must frag it use a marine putty to cover the bare ends. Much like covering a tree branch that you have recently pruned. This will protect the remaining healthy part of your hammer from the elements that may prey on it. Just tonight I noticed the parasite that killed my hammer after I fragged it.