Sun Coral (Tubastrea) Fragging 101

Discussion in 'Frags' started by mikejrice, Jan 29, 2014.

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  1. mikejrice

    mikejrice 3reef Affiliate

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    Location:
    Colorado
    Methodology:

    The method I use for fragging the majority of hard corals is primarily the same with the cutting tooling being an Inland band saw.

    Cooling liquid used is fresh mixed saltwater with enough iodine to color it a light amber. This helps to disinfect cuts as they're made which has shown to greatly increase frag survival.

    All corals are stored during cutting in a small bucket holding water taken directly from their home aquarium. This water is used both to keep them wet as well as for rinsing any flesh away from cuts while I'm working on them.

    All finished, and rinsed, frags or trimmed colonies are soaked in Brightwell Aquatics Restor dip to insure that minimal flesh is lost.

    Both soak buckets are rinsed and replenished between colonies to reduce the risk of interactions between loose flesh of different coral species.

    Notes about sun coral:

    It's vital when cutting sun coral to preserve the corallites as much as possible, so when cutting them, I always follow paths directly between polyps.

    As with most corals, I like to get them mounted as low as possible on frag plugs. To do this I cut all frags down parallel to the living surface of the animal. While doing this, it's important not to cut into the portion of the skeleton that has color due to living flesh.


    Cuts are sped up 4x

    If there's a specific species you would like to see fragged, comment below.
     
  2. Click Here!

  3. chris adams

    chris adams Purple Tang

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    very cool. How about doing 1 on a favia brain coral. I have 1 my wife want a piece of in her tank.. ha ha or I want mine back I should say.
     
  4. kstafford003

    kstafford003 Feather Star

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    Austin, TX
    Very nice work. You make it look super easy. Excellent info.
     
  5. SaltyClown

    SaltyClown Sea Dragon

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    That's the color sun coral my wife really, really wants!
     
  6. Va Reef

    Va Reef Giant Squid

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    Got enough sun coral to cut up? lol thanks for the vid, I haven't tried seriously fragging my sun coral yet, I'm too scared.