Worlds first?

[agame2021]

I work at a local fish store and I have been told this is a worlds first but wanted to put it out there to test the waters.
Grafted Undata Montipora. My shop has been growing this out for a while now. This MC has been fragged multiple times and none of the frags have made it. Just recently last week we had our first successful fragging and these pieces look awesome!
In the MC you can see the red streak all the way across the coral all the way into the purple rim. A couple of the polyps have changed color but most have stayed the same as the original.

let me know your thoughts or if you can find anyone else who has this grafted montipora. Just trying to make sure we are the worlds first before we go live with our store.

 

[Timfish]

Pretty coral. I doubt it's the worlds first though. Colration in corals is a very complex subject. What seems to be poorly understood or known to aquarists is flourescing protiens are used by corals to deal with disease and with free radicals from photosynthesis. WIth either of these causes bright colors are indicative of an underlying problem the coral is trying to deal with. The colors the Undata is displaying may be uncommon because the coral may not be able to survive long term with the issues causeing the colors or survive only with a very narrow set of parameters and isn't able to deal with additional stress or adapt well to new emvironments.

 

[michael_cb_125]

Neat coral, not a first....

 

[vetteguy53081]

Ive seen these before. Perhaps store's first but not world

 

[sculpin01]

This is an example of forced chimerism, where a tolerable cell line from a different individual of the same species is intentionally introduced into a coral. The orange color streaks are from the second cell line (making it a chimera). Although most commonly due to two or more coral planulae settling next to each other and fusing, mature corals can also perform this trick if their cell lines are compatible. Interesting thing about this is that chimerism has been shown to decrease bleaching risk in wild corals, thought to be due to constant inflammatory bickering between the two or more cell lines.

This is the first I’ve seen in M. undata, although it has been done in several other coral species.

 

[A Young Reefer]

I have seen some but not as clean as this

 

[Rovert]

Ditto, I recall seeing grafted monti's on a number of sites out there. Perhaps not this exact color morph, but nevertheless, definitely not a 'world's first'.

WWC Grafted Montipora Cap

WATER FLOW: MEDIUMLIGHT: MEDIUMsize 1/2 -3/4

jasonfoxsignaturecorals.com

 

[Nate Chalk]

Probably worth millions.

 

[SouthwestAquaculture]

It's pretty unusual for M. Undata although commonly seen in M. capricornis and M. setosa. Cool piece!

 

[ekandler]

Ditto, I recall seeing grafted monti's on a number of sites out there. Perhaps not this exact color morph, but nevertheless, definitely not a 'world's first'.

Not sure it’s a world first, but I wouldn’t compare this to a grafted cap.

even though they’re all montipora, setosa, capricornis, digitata, undata, etc. all are their own strains. Took years to graft montipora capricornis, then they did it with digitata and setosa. I’ve personally never seen grafted undata before, so it’s cool for sure. Doesn’t mean it’s a world first, but very nice.

 

[dschuffert]

It looks good, but do not think it is the world's first.

 

[agame2021]

Ditto, I recall seeing grafted monti's on a number of sites out there. Perhaps not this exact color morph, but nevertheless, definitely not a 'world's first'.

WWC Grafted Montipora Cap

WATER FLOW: MEDIUMLIGHT: MEDIUMsize 1/2 -3/4

jasonfoxsignaturecorals.com

Yeah it’s not the same though.

 

[agame2021]

Yeah I’m not looking for opinions. Looking for factual siting of specified “undata” being grafted. We have had this coral for 5 or so years allowing it to grow and am just trying to make sure we are the first to the party with this specific “undata”. Like mentioned there is a big difference between species.

 

[agame2021]

Lol, I love how once I ask for factual sitings of the specified “undata” montipora grafting this post stops getting comments. But when left to speculation and comparing to all types of montipora it blows up and people just fire away how it's “not special”. I just think it’s real funny.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Nobody said it's not special...i think most people think it's really cool, just not groundbreaking news or an occurrence of the impossible or anything like that

 

[jtone_philthy_aquatics]

I work at a local fish store and I have been told this is a worlds first but wanted to put it out there to test the waters.
Grafted Undata Montipora. My shop has been growing this out for a while now. This MC has been fragged multiple times and none of the frags have made it. Just recently last week we had our first successful fragging and these pieces look awesome!
In the MC you can see the red streak all the way across the coral all the way into the purple rim. A couple of the polyps have changed color but most have stayed the same as the original.

let me know your thoughts or if you can find anyone else who has this grafted montipora. Just trying to make sure we are the worlds first before we go live with our store.

Wow this piece is incredible ! I hope cultivating this species continues to go well for you guys because I’d love to get my hands on one down the road! It’s definitely the first time that I’ve seen this species in a grafted form. I’m really curious to see if anyone else out there has one

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I don’t really care for keeping montipora but I do like them, looks like a healthy piece too. There is a difference in a grafted coral and a coral that has a green protein transferred to it, or infection, not sure why that word was used either (gfp/green protein infection). That’s when ANY coral that’s green can touch another coral montipora/acropora in our case and the acropora or montipora will keep the fluorescent protein. This happens a lot, and doesn’t always stay there, Sometimes it overtakes so much of the coral and that looks a little odd sometimes.

Agamai2020 do you know what coral was used to make this? I am guessing the fragment shown was cut from the colony pictured underneath if it. If so it looks like the graft your seeing could be new growth starting a second shelf area? The color of the streak leads along a “ridge” that hits the outer rims new growth (beautiful by the way). This makes me wonder if it’s just a section of new growth starting and that it might possibly fade into a normal looking undata in time. Just a hunch. Though if it’s a true graft with another montipora of exact subspecies I am curious to what it was and how things turn out.
Great pics by the way! And I love it when reef store employees are involved in reef2reef and other like platforms, local shops benifit greatly too.

 

[agame2021]

I don’t really care for keeping montipora but I do like them, looks like a healthy piece too. There is a difference in a grafted coral and a coral that has a green protein transferred to it, or infection, not sure why that word was used either (gfp/green protein infection). That’s when ANY coral that’s green can touch another coral montipora/acropora in our case and the acropora or montipora will keep the fluorescent protein. This happens a lot, and doesn’t always stay there, Sometimes it overtakes so much of the coral and that looks a little odd sometimes.

Agamai2020 do you know what coral was used to make this? I am guessing the fragment shown was cut from the colony pictured underneath if it. If so it looks like the graft your seeing could be new growth starting a second shelf area? The color of the streak leads along a “ridge” that hits the outer rims new growth (beautiful by the way). This makes me wonder if it’s just a section of new growth starting and that it might possibly fade into a normal looking undata in time. Just a hunch. Though if it’s a true graft with another montipora of exact subspecies I am curious to what it was and how things turn out.
Great pics by the way! And I love it when reef store employees are involved in reef2reef and other like platforms, local shops benifit greatly too.

I will have to talk with my store manager(he has been cultivating this for a long time and we have been trying to figure some stuff out.
turns out it’s really hard to see the red at all without blue light. He was cutting the coral under white lights(which we should eventually upgrade). However he couldn’t see when cutting but all 5 pieces had a very little bit of red in them. Over a weeks times 4/5 pieces lost coloration. The only only one that still has red in it as of this moment is the mother colony and this photo which had the most amount of red in it to begin with.
The frag however has faded slightly. This is being kept in a separate system from the mother colony. Mother colony has red all the way thru the coral and down into the purple edge with new growth. There is a new bit of red color coming onto the piece of undata even though the coral is pretty far away from all other corals in the tank it is now in. I have other sps (red Millie’s and wild acro colonies.) as well as some LPS in the tank with it. I need to figure out what tank it was in before he moved it and see where it originated from. I have only been here with this company for around a year but this coral has been being watched by him for 5.
Let me know if you have a specific list of questions and I will ask him.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

These swirly colors can happen from just a small broken piece of a coral landing on the colony so sometimes it’s impossible to tell where the color came from. And I am bad with like colors so don’t go on too much of what I said
Hopefully the part in the middle sticks for the one frag, I would certainly keep both in the same area and leave them be as long as possible to see if it sticks long term. It’s promising that it’s not green ime. The green pigment infection type of colorations are notorious for looking cool then fading in a few months or sometimes even longer. Bad part is some people find the green will take to other corals too and sometimes that doesn’t look good. I have not seen many orange or red graft/infection fade out and disappear like the greens do. I am still waiting to see if John copps still has his grafted Bella acropora growing well. I got the first piece but lost it when I gave my corals to a friend before I moved to Florida. Thanks for sharing the pics and keep us updated.

 

[mdb_talon]

I have never seen this with an undata. Of course my limited experience is no proof that it has not been done before of course, but for everyone saying it has been done I am curious if they have links to any... I am surprised to have not seen it before?