Colt Coral Propagation

[habfan]

Can anyone provide advice on frag'ing this guy (girl?), is it ready? and if so what would be the best technique?:confused:

[Mitchell]

looks kinda small in the pic.

Before fragging, make sure the coral is healthy.

Get a pair of SHARP stainless steel scissors and cut off a limb.

Softies are generally easy to frag

[afss]

do like coralmorphian says.
once you have cut the frag you can attach it to a new location using marine glue (like a thinck crazy glue), elastics, or you can set it on the bottom of the tank in a low flow area with some rubble and let it attach itself.

Scott

[reefburnaby]

Hi,

The picture is so small that I can't figure out which species it is...but that's okay...we will assume that its really a colt.

I would do the sissor thing too...but I would do it outside of the tank and in a small bowl of tank water. Softies, especially leathers, release toxins when they are damaged. These toxins, in a small tank\, can cause havoc.

After the cut, I would make sure that the mother plant is placed back in to the tank and ensure no bacterial infection occurs (this is usually done by gentling blowing any fuzz or stuff that is stuck to the coral ).

Hope that helps.

- Victor.

[habfan]

Well, I took your advice, gained some courage and cut of a 1 1/2" piece of the 8" main stock, thankfully I had some small pieces of LR with a perfect size hole, the cutting fit perfect (no glue or elastics required).

As expected both pieces retracted substantially upon cutting, but within an hour both they were extended once again...like nothing ever happened.

2 days have passed and both pieces seem to be doing just fine.

Thanks for your advice.:thumbsup:

[Mitchell]

glad all went well. Softies are usually very hardy to this type of propagation.
You are from Hamilton I noticed. Are you going out to the MAST meeting tomorrow night?