A PPE Experiment (with pics)

ficklefins · Feb 28, 2008

***I apologize if someone already came up with this idea, and if you know who did please post it here.***

While looking at my PPE and wanting it to expand quicker I came up with an idea that I felt may work. I local reef club member is very successful at propagating RBTAs by cutting them in half and allowing the pieces to heal. Then I thought to myself, there is no way a polyp could withstand being cut in half, but then I remembered a previous experience with a hungry sexy shrimp who ate half of a polyp of one of my zoas.I thought the polyp was a gonner but I kept it in my tank and got the sexy shrimp out of there. After 2 days the polyp closed the cut end. By the next week I could see it growing stubby tentacles, and by the end of the 3rd week it was back to its glory. I was amazed.

So this gave me the idea that I could slice my PPE in half and have it survive the cut. So I picked a sample victim that I could experiment on and not worry about losing. RPE it was!

This was a Previous Experiment:

Step 1
Pull it out of the water still expanded so I could see the mouth. I wanted to cut perpendicular to the mouth just like they do with BTA cuttings.

Step 2
Cut it as described above with a new clean razor blade. So far so good

Step 3
Place back into the water and cross your fingers.

Now it was a waiting game to monitor its progression.

24 Hrs Later the polyp was still full, but the two halves were butting up against one another.

1 week later the two halves had joined together and reformed a single polyp... arghhh. While these results were positive, because the polyp survived, I did not end up with two single polyps.

then 1 week +

2 Weeks after the experiment the polyp was full and open again. It survived this trial but I had to figure out a way to keep the two sides separate. The only question that I still had left was if the polyp survived because the two sides came together or if it would survive no matter what.

ficklefins · Feb 28, 2008

So I needed to rethink my experiment and figure out a way to keep the halves from healing up against each other. I came up with the idea of using a divider after the cut, and eggcrate won as the easiest medium for doing this. So back to the experiment, and this time I took the jump and used one of the two PPE polyps I have. This could be an expensive experiment.

Step 1
Pull the frag out of the water full enough to see the mouth.

Step 2
Cut perpendicular to the mouth with a clean blade. I may be rethinking the perpendicular idea because the mouth was a full circle when I made the cut. I used the other polyp for reference to what it looked like before.

Step 3
Place an I shaped piece of eggcrate between the two halves and glue it to the plug. The goal for this was to cut the sides of from each other so it forces them to heal independently.

Step 4
Back in the water it goes!

Results... yet to be determined. I will keep you people posted.

reef-lover · Feb 28, 2008

Luciano, awesome pics.. great experiment.....

msman825 · Feb 28, 2008

I agree, Awesome keep us posted and good luck.

NapoliNewJersey · Feb 28, 2008

Ditto and good luck.

reef-lover · Feb 28, 2008

I remember last year, the REV tried something similiar. I believe he took an armeggedon frag and cut around the base of one of the polyps to see if that would cause reproduction? I never heard the final results? REV?

ficklefins · Feb 28, 2008

I really hope this new divider will work and will allow more users to own the "rare" zoas/palys that most user pay big money for.

ficklefins · Feb 28, 2008

reef-lover said:
I remember last year, the REV tried something similiar. I believe he took an armeggedon frag and cut around the base of one of the polyps to see if that would cause reproduction? I never heard the final results? REV?

I have read a few posts where people have made slits on the mat and that grew new polyps, but I was looking for an instant result.

coralfarm123 · Feb 28, 2008

Good experiment and creative thinking with the eggrate. Hopefully it works out. How long do you plan of leaving the divider in place? It seems like your other polyp was healed pretty well within week.

edwing206 · Feb 29, 2008

Great post. Be sure to keep us updated, you can never have too many pictures.

limestro · Feb 29, 2008

Yeah, I love the pictures. Hopefully the results would be what you had expected. I could of sworn this was deja vu.

cobraz · Feb 29, 2008

This indeed is a great expermint... I have done the same with ricordea... yumas seem to be a little more sensitive.

Please update us as it goes... great work.

ficklefins · Feb 29, 2008

Day 2
The two halves look somewhat shriveled right now. Not dead, but not healthy either. I'm not sure if this is a bad sign or not, I guess time will tell.

Pics from above:

Pics from the side:

gastone · Feb 29, 2008

Luciano, you say shrivelled and I almost think it looks as if they are trying to reform. I hope I'm right and you are wrong. You are my hero. This is quite possibly the coolest thing I have ever seen.

Garrett.

surfn · Feb 29, 2008

dude, you should publish a paper on this and send it to "Nature"....one of the most renowned scientific journals in the world...lol

very nice!

FateX8 · Feb 29, 2008

the one half with the clear picture look to be reforming to me too
i remember people trying to cut the mat and people said they grew new polyps but i dont think the cut really was what stimulated growth, i remember someone with a lot of ppe frags saying that it really didnt make a difference in growth but cant remember exactly who that was

ficklefins · Feb 29, 2008

gastone said:
Luciano, you say shrivelled and I almost think it looks as if they are trying to reform.

Garrett.

When I first looked at it I thought they were goners, but then I realized that the last damaged polyp I had used it's own "body" to heal on the other segment. Meaning the shriveled polyps could be folding on itself to heal and not because it is withering away.

The one thing that made me thing differently was the thinness of the base. It really looks like the polyp head is trying to release from the base. This polyp head release happens when someone is a bit rough when fragging polyps without cutting into the rock.