Soft Bodied Fragging question(s)

[shollis2814]

So, I have a couple of frags that have started growing over my life rock quite nicely: GSP, and meteor swarm being two of the main ones. If I wanted to start another colony on a different rock, could I just cut the frag out of the existing colony and place it elsewhere? It seems like the ones on the rock would fill in the central hole rather quickly.

Also, how does one frag things like blastos that are on live rock, but attached down in a recess/not a convenient place to snip the rock?

Wanting to put my frag plug winnings to good use.

 

[Rob.D]

Specifically, blastomussa wellsi are nearly impossible to frag in tank, but merletti can be fragged with the use of bone cutters...imo, best to find a local member with experience to come over to look or post good pics and maybe you can be walked through the process. As far as gsp goes, you can peal off parts with your finger nail and rip frags free, then use super glue gel yo place the frags. I assume you mean Meteor shower cyphastrea? If so, you will need to cut that with bone cutters (it's a small polyp stony coral not a soft coral). Hope this helps.

 

[fishdoc11]

Depending on what the coral is growing on yes you can just cut out a piece. Now part of that depends on the coral. I would look up "how to frag" on Youtube to see some of the mores common ones. The easiest way to frag most "encrusting" softies like GSP is just to position rocks to frag plugs next to the coral, let the GSP overgrow the plug and then cut it loose.

Blastos and other LPS that grow across rock usually need to be cut with something like a tile saw to make precise cuts or you can use a chisel and hammer. Getting a piece out of a hole in live rock sounds like something that may end up hurting the coral and not yielding much results but hard to say without seeing the piece. "Bone cutters" or rongeurs as Rob mentioned will work well depending on how thick the piece is.


HTH, Chris