Fragging Montastrea sp.

I had been meaning to try fragging this thing up for a long time, just never got around to trying it. I went to frag a small piece off of it and a big chunk came off, so I went ahead and fragged that into several smaller pieces just to see what would happen. Its been 24hrs and all is well so far (crosses fingers).

My method was crude, but it appears to have worked. I used cutters to just cut the rock it was on, and it made some real nice breaks on the skeleton with minimal tissue loss. It appears all the partial heads are going to make it.

First pic is the before pic when its all opened up 5x7"...


Second pic is the biggest piece after the first cut that I am leaving intact for now just in case. Notice it still has a lot more red to it then green. The more red it shows, means the more open it is...


This pic is some most of the frags I cut, rather large frags for the most part. Notice how theres more green then red in this pic, they havent fuly opened up yet, but you can tell there will be no tissue loss.


If they all survive, they will be fragged up more and put on my "geeks reef rocks" to grow out.

 

Wow. Is that coral really that red? It's a beautiful piece! I don't think I'd have had the nerve to frag it up

 

that is a freaking awesome looking monti, if you're getting rid of any frags let me know

 

Yes its really that red, its beautiful! But with it being so large, its hard to do anything with cause its so flat. It was starting to grow underneath it so it had to be fragged up. I meant to do it before my ME trip but didnt get around to it. If I would have, there would be some frags in CT right now, haha!

Thats not a Montipora, its a Montastrea, same family as favites. Its also known as a Christmas Coral because of the red and green coloration.

Imnot sure what Im going to do with the frags, Im always up for trades, haha! A couple of the "frags" are really just a small colony, thats why I mentioned fragging some of them up more. A frag is usually 2-4 heads, some of those have 10 heads.

 

Great job Brian

For Favites or Montastrea, I often do it just like you did because each corallite has it's own septum walls.

For Favia or Platygyra, I highly recommend the use of a dremel with a diamond saw blade. I recommend using a multi-speed dremel and use the slower speeds for more control

 

Ive got a favia thats next on my list of fragging, haha! I need to get a cordless dremel, I dont like getting electricuted, so I havent used my corded dremel for any of this.

I also have a huge Pagoda cup that Im going to try to frag. I was told you couldnt frag them, but I dont believe that.

 

I have to admit, you got the nerves man! I probably be crying my eyes out.
great job buddy thanks for sharing..although I won't be trying something like that any time soon.....lmao

 

You'll never know if you can do it unless you try! I wouldnt recommend doing this if its your first time fragging though, lol. I started out with mushrooms several years, then went to toadstools and ricordea's. The mushrooms were my gateway drug on fragging, hahaha! Ive fragged all kinds of soft corals (dont reccommend fragging colt corals, hahaha!) amd SPS corals, always been to scared to do LPS corals. I fragged some blasto's and aussie acans awhile back and saw how easy it was, so Ive been venturing into the "supposed" harder to frag kind. Im going to run out of stuff to frag soon, haha! Im already at capacity for my tanks and buying more tanks soon...

 

All I've got that is fraggable atm is xenia which I'm sure you don't want, if my bta splits again sometime soon maybe I would have something to offer up in trade ;D

 

Wanna bet ;D

Use a dremel at a slightly higher speed (WEAR GOGGLES). The heat generated closes the wounds at the cut