fragged my maze brain

[davejnz]

Well,I borrowed a 4" grinder from work yesterday to do some work on my boat.Was inside looking at my corals and thought i should perform some surgery on one.Its a Platogyra that is shaped like a flattened dome.Just took the coral out,turned it over and cut through the skeleton/rock almost to the tissue.Turned it back over and broke the 2 halves,it split perfectly and today i have 2 corals :D The coral is healing remarkably.I had considered sealing the edge with superglue to prevent necrosis/recession but after today,i dont think i'm gonna have to.This was the first time I've attempted to frag any non-branching stoney coral and overall i'd say it was a success.Pics to come shortly,you can see the coral in this thread http://www.captivereefing.com/viewtopic.php?t=118

[jerryc]

Dave sounds like fun i love to frag corals i frag them and grew them out some
and then trade them in on new coral at the local LFS. But i will only take new arrivals from them sadly Thea have a poor set up for coral. Fish OK
but it lets me get something new Farlee cheap .
i frag my zos Farlee often Thea trade the best and grew the fastest.
Take a pic of them so we can see whit Thea look like after.

[Buiryn]

Nice work, I can't wait to see some pictures of the frags.
Try to get some up close pictures of the cut as well. Hopefully it'll help someone else to gather up the courage do this as well if they can see how it's suppose to look.

How did you hold it while cutting? Did the grinder make quick work of it?

Matt

[davejnz]

Here's a couple pics,the first one is both colonies the next day,looking pretty good so far.
The next one is a closeup of the cut edge.Hey Jerry,recgonize those zo's
The grinder worked great,just scored the skeleton than broke the 2 halves apart by hand that way it would hopefully split between the corallites.

[Reptoreef]

Nice job... looks like you should be fraggin LPS for a living.

[jerryc]

Great job man. Hey looks like those ZOs have been growing all Reade.
To bad LPS wont work in a Thermos id be after you to send one to me. :mrgreen:

[Reef_Angel]

That almost looked like it was asking to be fragged! It reminds me of my candycanes when they are about to split. Do you know if these split on their own by chance? That might make for some interesting reading. Thanks for sharing that fragging with us.

[davejnz]

Your right,it kind of looked like 2 colonies merged together in the wild but the skeleton was solid underneath.In Borneman's book he states that many Faviids grow from their margins from extratentacular budding.In this case,the margin was right down the middle because that was where the polyps were dividing at.

[Reef_Angel]

That is awesome! I don't have one in my tank, but I'm thinking I may need to do some reading on it and maybe get one now. You've peeked my interest on this.

[davejnz]

Make sure you find one that doesnt have recession around the margins.I've seen plenty come in like that at the LFS that fail to thrive,I waited a long time for them to finally bring in some healthy specimens.Flattened ones are reportedly from shallower water with higher current,The spherical shaped ones are from deeper water,possibly less current.
Perhaps we could do a trade in the spring