Fragging pink sps coral question??

[Snookin]

I have a small 28g with a few SPS corals that I want to frag and put in my 90g tank over the next month or two. The picture below is my pink sps that has about 12-15 branches of about 2-3 inches coming off the base.

Question: When fragging this coral, can I frag all the 12-15 branches off at one time glue them to plugs and place back in my 28g to repair/heal then place them in my 90g. Or should I slowly frag the coral branch by branch over a period of time?

 

[SeymourDuncan]

if you do that you are more likely to have a ton of healthy frags and a dead mother colony. I think you are only supposed to frag the very tip of the branch, but I could be wrong. I have trimmed 16 branches of purple se3a fan with no ill effectz, but thats a whole other monster.

 

[FishScale]

best bet would be it to put it back in the tank it came from just for a day or two.

 

[chort55]

Why would u want to put 12-15 frags of the same thing in a tank (unless its a frag tank to sell out of)? Cut a chunk of branches off at one time and mount that instead of a bunch of little pieces.... not sure if I explained that very well, I know what I am trying to say but yeah can't think of a way to explain it better right now LOL

 

[Snookin]

My idea is to have the whole top of my tank: pink, blue, and green SPS braching all over. Then the bottom be all types of chalices.

Having the same type of SPS coral in numerous places on the rock is my goal. I love the look of an overwhelming SPS look at the top of the reef. But I understand why you may think that was crazy because most tanks are really diverse with all different types of coral.

My main goal though is to not injure the coral anymore than I have to during fragging.

 

[chort55]

So you want to have a bunch of 3 different sps instead of a bunch of multiple sps at the top? Its your tank do what you want with it, but IMO you would be better off looks wise when it grows out with various different SPS at the top rather then a bunch of the same couple corals. You could still focus on those 3 colors if you chose to, just go with different types

A bunch of smaller cuts/frags is more stress on the coral then one bigger frag.... not to say it cant be done but odds increase for losses with smaller frequent cuts from my experiences. Also, the larger the coral is the quicker they tend to grow as well.