Coral Fragging Information for beginner

[Limpit]

Can someone suggest some easy to understand reading on fragging for a beginner,
and or a list of easy to frag corals?
I have a spare 29 gallon tank and I would like to give it a try.
I got some Colt frags from G.M.T. and now I have the bug.

[Reptoreef]

Here's my list of easiest to hardest...
1 shrooms... cut into pieces and put them into a glass in the system with rock rubble in the bottom and a piece of netting over the open end of the glass.
2 zoanthids... cut polyps away from a larger colony and do as above if not mounted of if so, glue to LR, etc.
3 leathers... snip/cut desired piece with sharp scissors or razor and complete as #1 or anchor to LR with a toothpic, sewing, netting and let be until attatched, then rempve anchor.
4 branching LPS (euphillias, etc)... Break off branch and GEL superglue or reef epoxy to desired spot on LR.
5 SPS(acropora, milipora, montipora, stc)... smaller frags- as #4 colonies-a strong reef epoxy and mounted to desired spot on LR
6 LPS(brains, etc)... I prefer not to try due to larger possibilities of loss.

BTW, there are for more in-depth ways for diff species of most SPS or LPS as well as the others so be advised that these methods are more general and are my opinion.

Repto

[dakar]

Fragging most colts is fairly simple and straight forward. Though curious what kind of colt you got that you are looking to frag... Trying to remember any colts GT had last time we saw his reef that were large enough to frag, and coming up blank.... great memory huh?

Many colts will frag themselves by dropping off 'arms' as they grow, some like the Kenya tree can get almost annoying throwing babies around, we've got a dozen or so scattered all over the place now and more appearing every few days.

If the colony is established enough it's just a matter of cleanly slicing off an arm close to the main trunk and either attaching it to a piece of rubble, some use glue, litteraly sewing it to a rock, wedding viel, putting the frag in a very low flow area and allow it to attach itself, or the method Angel and I found works the best, just stick the base of the frag in a small hole in a piece of rock or subble (if need be a small concrete drill bit at low speed will drill you a perfect mounting hole), they attach in a day or two and are all set.

The key is to make the cut as quickly and cleanly as possible in one pass no hacksawing on it, a clean scalpel or xacto knife works well, to reduce the stress and possibility of infection to both the frag and mother colony. The mother colony will likely look pretty sad for a day or two but will perk back up shortly. Good water quality will help in recovery and ultimately your success.

The jury is still out on the best place to start the new frag, either the same tank the mother colony is in or a different tank. We (Angel and I) have had better success in the same tank vs. a frag tank.

Other techniques I've read about but not yet tried is attaching a couple of small pieces of gravel sized rubble and rubberbanding them to the branch to be fragged, the coral should attach to the rubble. Or using floss or a rubber band or dental floss to gradually increase a constriction point on the branch to be fragged and main colony, increasing the constriction avery 3-4 days or more until it drops off.

The mother colony should be well established in your reef before fragging it.

[Limpit]

Dakar,
I am not looking to frag the Colts that I got from G.M.T. only that I got Colt frags from him and I would like to try it on something but would hate to kill a coral due to my actions. I really never paid much attention to fragging until I met G.M.T. and thought it would be so cool to take one organism and create more from that one.
I have always had F.O. tanks up till now and also like the idea of getting coral frags from others in trade instead of going out and trying to find good stock at the LFS.
Thanks for the info, it will be a good start.
Now where is that checkbook for some starter stock?? LOL

[dakar]

That works for me... Hope when combined with Repto's info this will give you a good start and idea of where to begin. Be sure to post your progress :)

Next time we do any fragging here we'll photo document the processes we used and post them. Right now we are letting most everything mature a bit more.

By the way you got any Kenya trees frags? Want some? :lol:

[Limpit]

Dakar,
I PM'd you about the Kenya tree frags.
Thanks