Question on fragging

[reefgirl78]

Hi,

I have several things I would like to frag but not sure how. I have bubble, frogspawn, torch and several others that have developed little baby nubs at the base of the parent and don't know how to do it. Also with Leathers how does that work? Also I noticed that my green leather a part attached to rock and separated but now is free of rock so how do I attach him?

If you know a good threads or have some advise please send it my way...

Thanks,
Alison

 

[sihaya]

I think Calfo has a decent book on coral fragging. You might want to start there.

Personally, I've seen a few fragging demos, and I don't think it's too easy to screw things up. Its seems like corals are pretty tolerant of being cut into pieces (oddly enough). I use a dremel saw because I don't have room for a tile saw.

 

[returnofsid]

If your frogspawn and torch are of the branching variety, they're very easy to frag. They break just like a wishbone. I actually used a small chisel and a hammer....placed the chisel about where I wanted the break and "GENTLY" tapped it with the hammer. It split exactly where I wanted it to. I've done the same with Candy Cane coral. From what I understand, Bubble coral is a bit different. I know someone who frags theirs in the following manner. They cut through the hard, skeletal portion with a dremel. They don't cut completely through and don't touch the soft portion. Then over a period of time, they stretch out the soft portion by moving the cut halves of hard portion further apart or to different levels. You can even place a rock under one half and lower the other half a bit. Space them further apart every couple days. Pretty soon, the soft portion will split on it's own. This method is a lot less traumatic than some other methods that involve cutting the soft polyp area also.

 

[jake65]

Heres a link to the Garf website....they have propogation pics and movies for all types of coral http://www.garf.org/