How do you frag acan coral?

Does anyone know how to frag acan corals. I bought two colonies of over 50 heads and I want to sell a few to get some money back.

 

Cleanest way is with a saw or baring that a dremel, I have heard of people going with the hammer/chisel method but the thought makes me squirm.

 

So use the saw to cut the head. Do I cut the rock away too or do I cut the underside of the acan off the rock too? kind of like zoas? or mushrooms?

 

if you cut through the acan itself that polyp will die. So you have to cut around each polyp...taking the rock with it. Best use with a dremel and a fine diamond bit

 

Use a band saw or wet tile saw or dremel with diamond wheel.

They are attached to the rock so make sure you take a good bit of rock with them so you don't destroy some of their flesh/innards that are in the skeleton attached to the rock.

Make sure they are fully acclimated to your system and 100% healthy before you try fragging them to eliminate as much potential dieoff/damage as possible. I would feed them well for a week or two beforehand to be sure they are doing well.

Make the thinnest/fastest cuts you can without heating up the blade too much, if the saw blade gets hot it will cause more damage to the coral tissue.

If you want to get really fancy you can use a saw/dremel just to score the underside of the rock until you get close to the flesh on the other side, then insert a chisel into the scoring and twist it gently to "pop" the last bit of rock apart, if you did it right the flesh will still be intact then you can take a scalpel or razor to more cleanly cut the flesh.

 

I have to politely disagree here, I've seen many people cut polyps in half and they survive.

I hate to link to other forums but there is a lot of good info and some great pics here. Anthony Calfo's fragging thread, bit old but there are pics of an acan polyp cut in half and healing.
Reef Central Online Community - Coral & Anemone fragging - techniques

 

My acan frag had some polyps cut in half and they survived but as a rule of thumb I would try and avoid cutting the heads in half. It just opens the door for infections and other problems.

 

I'd use a dremel to cut through the rock, then a razor blade to cut through the fleshy part to avoid the heat from the dremel.

 

thanks for the replies. The corals arrive in the morning. I'll post pics then I'll wait about two weeks to frag them.