Scolymia have always enjoyed a dedicated following, and they are among the most compelling and "collectible" of all corals, in our opinion. They do require some care and knowledge of their needs, and are not just "set and forget" corals. If there needs are understood and met, however, Scolymia are interesting and surprisingly durable long-term additions to a reef aquarium. They tend to be somewhat pricy, because they are traditionally hand-collected from the wild.
Our hope is to learn more about the captive propagation of these compelling corals, so as to help lessen the impact of wild collection over time. We will share our experiences and what knowledge we do gain, so that the hobby, industry, and most important- wild populations- may benefit from this.
Interestingly, Scolys appear to be more popular all of the sudden in the trade and hobby. In fact, it seems like an emerging trend is that everyone is featuring Scolys...Which means that UC is probably not going to feature them quite as prominently right now. (We love looking at trends, because then we know exactly what we shouldn’t be doing!)
Nonetheless, we received a lot of response to our last thread about our “big experimentâ€, fragging Scolymia with the intention of creating a commercially viable, cost-effective frag that will make these awesome corals more affordable to the average hobbyist. There was so much interest that we decided to start a thread documenting the process a bit more as we move forward with the next round.
Again, we realize that we are not working on a Nobel-Prize-winning thing here, but we are trying, with our meager experiment, to see if we can make the fragging and captive propagation of these corals less intimidating and more common, particularly at a commercial level. And there is much to learn!
We are fortunate to have a pretty large inventory of wild-collected Aussie Scolymia to work with at any given time, so finding suitable specimens to work with is not that difficult for us.
This time, we’ve chosen three different Australian Scolymia for fragging:
A greenish “Striped Apple†morph, a “Warpaint†morph, and an orange one that we called the “Clockwork Orange.†All three were in good health, chosen from our collection because they had different color characteristics that we wanted to observe during the post-fragging recovery period. We’re curious if the color patterns are “programmed†genetically into the coral and will grow out exactly the same on each section, or if some other color pattern will emerge.
Also, each one had a different skeletal characteristic, which was useful in helping us determine which become the most suitable corals for fragging. Some Scolys have thick skeletons and a lot of tissue, and others are much thinner, with less tissue. We’re wondering which are the best candidates for propagation.
Sure, none of the Scolys we are working with in our initial rounds are “A Grade†pieces...We are still a bit hesitant to take one of our awesome specimens “under the knifeâ€, as it were! Once we have a bit more experience and confidence with this process, we will work with one of our better specimens in Round Three...Perhaps we will have enough confidence to take one of those "A Grade" Scoly specimens to the saw one day!
We used one of our conventional Gryphon fragging saws to do the job, making simple, yet accurate cuts through the tissue and skeleton. Most Scolymia that we receive from our Aussie source are collected with a small bit of rock upon which they grow, so fragging required that we cut through the underlying rock as well. Each cut was made directly through the center of the coral, with great care made to preserve part of the central “mouth†on each section.
We did a few cuts on one of the specimens without the mouth, to see if the development of a new mouth will force faster growth, or if there is any impact at all, positive or negative. We also deliberately cut a few random small pieces of tissue from the side of one of the specimens to see what recovery and grow-out times are like on specimens handled in that manner.
We think that various types of cuts would have different healing and growth patterns, so it certainly warrants investigation! Of partucular interest to us is how/if a coral heals well without any of the mouth preserved. So much to learn.
Our hope is to learn more about the captive propagation of these compelling corals, so as to help lessen the impact of wild collection over time. We will share our experiences and what knowledge we do gain, so that the hobby, industry, and most important- wild populations- may benefit from this.
Interestingly, Scolys appear to be more popular all of the sudden in the trade and hobby. In fact, it seems like an emerging trend is that everyone is featuring Scolys...Which means that UC is probably not going to feature them quite as prominently right now. (We love looking at trends, because then we know exactly what we shouldn’t be doing!)
Nonetheless, we received a lot of response to our last thread about our “big experimentâ€, fragging Scolymia with the intention of creating a commercially viable, cost-effective frag that will make these awesome corals more affordable to the average hobbyist. There was so much interest that we decided to start a thread documenting the process a bit more as we move forward with the next round.
Again, we realize that we are not working on a Nobel-Prize-winning thing here, but we are trying, with our meager experiment, to see if we can make the fragging and captive propagation of these corals less intimidating and more common, particularly at a commercial level. And there is much to learn!
We are fortunate to have a pretty large inventory of wild-collected Aussie Scolymia to work with at any given time, so finding suitable specimens to work with is not that difficult for us.
This time, we’ve chosen three different Australian Scolymia for fragging:
A greenish “Striped Apple†morph, a “Warpaint†morph, and an orange one that we called the “Clockwork Orange.†All three were in good health, chosen from our collection because they had different color characteristics that we wanted to observe during the post-fragging recovery period. We’re curious if the color patterns are “programmed†genetically into the coral and will grow out exactly the same on each section, or if some other color pattern will emerge.
Also, each one had a different skeletal characteristic, which was useful in helping us determine which become the most suitable corals for fragging. Some Scolys have thick skeletons and a lot of tissue, and others are much thinner, with less tissue. We’re wondering which are the best candidates for propagation.
Sure, none of the Scolys we are working with in our initial rounds are “A Grade†pieces...We are still a bit hesitant to take one of our awesome specimens “under the knifeâ€, as it were! Once we have a bit more experience and confidence with this process, we will work with one of our better specimens in Round Three...Perhaps we will have enough confidence to take one of those "A Grade" Scoly specimens to the saw one day!
We used one of our conventional Gryphon fragging saws to do the job, making simple, yet accurate cuts through the tissue and skeleton. Most Scolymia that we receive from our Aussie source are collected with a small bit of rock upon which they grow, so fragging required that we cut through the underlying rock as well. Each cut was made directly through the center of the coral, with great care made to preserve part of the central “mouth†on each section.
We did a few cuts on one of the specimens without the mouth, to see if the development of a new mouth will force faster growth, or if there is any impact at all, positive or negative. We also deliberately cut a few random small pieces of tissue from the side of one of the specimens to see what recovery and grow-out times are like on specimens handled in that manner.
We think that various types of cuts would have different healing and growth patterns, so it certainly warrants investigation! Of partucular interest to us is how/if a coral heals well without any of the mouth preserved. So much to learn.
