Saw or Knife Fragging

[Oceanic_Gardens]

Good Morning everyone! I was curious what everyone’s preferred method of fragging zoas is. Which method has the highest survival rate? Does a saw increase recovery time for the zoas or does it provide a cleaner cut? All answers welcome, thank you!

 

[littlebigreef]

Depends on what they're mounted on. The goal is to always 1) limit the amount of tissue you're cutting and 2) leaving enough of a base so that the glue doesn't come in contact with the tissue.

If it's on a plug your best bet is to score the tissue with a scalpel or razor blade and then use bone cutter to break the plug. The only issue here is that you're 1) dependent on the plug being a breakable type and 2) that you get a favorable break. You can take the bone cutters right through the tissue but that's a sloppy way of doing it.

Alternatively you can run it through a saw. The band is pretty narrow but you might still end up sacrificing some polyps. The draw back here is that, while extraordinary useful, you're looking at $400-500 for the saw. I would advise against a dremel tool. A long long time ago I used one and found 1) it wasn't precise, 2) generated a lot of heat, 3) even with specific blades it didn't always cut the best 4) very messy (good way to grind up zoas and aspirate it).

Your other option is the 'scrape and wait' where you can use a scalpel or exacto knife to remove the polyp(s) from the plug. You can then drop the polyps into a shroom box with a thin layer of coarse substrate and give it a week or two to heal and attach. You can then mount these on plugs.

Which ever approach you take you should always give all frags and broodstock a 5-6 min lugol's bath before mounting. You also want to change that water out every so often if you're fragging a lot of stuff so that you're not putting stressed animals in a bath with juice from other stressed animals. Finally, remember that all zoas have different tolerances for fragging.

 

[Oceanic_Gardens]

Thank you for this insight. does the quick friction of a saw hurt the polyp? I mean I use a gryphon saw and it is indeed a wet saw, so pretty safe id assume?

 

[littlebigreef]

I’d say the friction isn’t an issue. I have a gryphon as well and I haven’t suffered a higher mortality rate when I use it, again, just be sure to wash out the slurry regularly.

 

[mdb_talon]

Most of the time though I prefer a scalpel to cut and then breaking the plug(often using a partial sawcut on the plug only just to make sure it breaks where I want). Depending on the zoa sometimes it is easy to scrape just cut and scrape the polyp off and if possible I go that route. I will sometimes use my saw if the polyps are well spaced or if it is a big chunk of rock or rubble it is sometimes just easier that way.

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

I use a scalpel with a flat ended blade to cut the mat between heads then slide the blade beneath the ones I want to remove for a frag. Plugs are hard for me to keep to I try my best to keep plugs in tact. My rocks are massive in my tank so anything that is growing on them can’t be fragged. I drilled holes in my rock for plug stems so I could always remove the plug of something for fragging.