Hey everyone,
Sorry to have been a bit absent yesterday, but we were a bit crazy after Reefapalooza and our Columbus Day Sale! Had the usual out-of-town reef celebrity friends dropping by our facility, including Tony Vargas, Marc Tetrault from Marco Rock, Ike Eichenbride from Ecoxotic, and my personal favorite coral mad scientist, Justin Credabel from ReefGen!
Of course, Justin is a coral geek through and through, and about as knowledgable about fragging and propagation as anyone on the planet,and when I told him about my Scoly experiments, it took almost no effort to convince him to join me at the saws for a session of Scoly fragging! Watching him at work is almost zen-like; the guy is a great resource and one of the most creative people in the coral world. It should come as no surprise, then, that we decided to not just frag some Scolys, but to make some grafted ones this time!
Here were today's subjects:
Perhaps a bit run-of-the-mill, but once they are grafted, it opens up a lot of cool possibilities!
Justin at the saw is a study in relaxed confidene. He moves fluid-like and efficiently...And apparently in zero-gravity, because I couldn't get this photo rotated properly from my iPhone! Sorry!
After a few minutes, we had our cuts, made simply and cleanly right down the middle. The theory is that when you secure the two halves together, there will be some sharing of genetic material, and perhaps some color pattern transference.
The fragments were "milled" a bit for a more-or-less clean "fit"
The idea today was to select specimens with widely contrasting patterns and colors to see if we get a true graft. Since they are all Scolymia australis, we felt that we have a good chance of achieving success. Justin feels that Scolys are an excellent candidate for this type of project, and has had considerable experience making Scoly frags. The information he provided will give us much greater confidence to continue fragging Scolys, with the potential to acheive that coveted end result of less expensive propagated Scolys a reality!
Sorry to have been a bit absent yesterday, but we were a bit crazy after Reefapalooza and our Columbus Day Sale! Had the usual out-of-town reef celebrity friends dropping by our facility, including Tony Vargas, Marc Tetrault from Marco Rock, Ike Eichenbride from Ecoxotic, and my personal favorite coral mad scientist, Justin Credabel from ReefGen!
Of course, Justin is a coral geek through and through, and about as knowledgable about fragging and propagation as anyone on the planet,and when I told him about my Scoly experiments, it took almost no effort to convince him to join me at the saws for a session of Scoly fragging! Watching him at work is almost zen-like; the guy is a great resource and one of the most creative people in the coral world. It should come as no surprise, then, that we decided to not just frag some Scolys, but to make some grafted ones this time!
Here were today's subjects:
Perhaps a bit run-of-the-mill, but once they are grafted, it opens up a lot of cool possibilities!
Justin at the saw is a study in relaxed confidene. He moves fluid-like and efficiently...And apparently in zero-gravity, because I couldn't get this photo rotated properly from my iPhone! Sorry!
After a few minutes, we had our cuts, made simply and cleanly right down the middle. The theory is that when you secure the two halves together, there will be some sharing of genetic material, and perhaps some color pattern transference.
The fragments were "milled" a bit for a more-or-less clean "fit"
The idea today was to select specimens with widely contrasting patterns and colors to see if we get a true graft. Since they are all Scolymia australis, we felt that we have a good chance of achieving success. Justin feels that Scolys are an excellent candidate for this type of project, and has had considerable experience making Scoly frags. The information he provided will give us much greater confidence to continue fragging Scolys, with the potential to acheive that coveted end result of less expensive propagated Scolys a reality!
