best way to frag a toadstool leather?

[blackthunda77]

whats the best way to frag a toadstool leather. i cut off a pice of the crown 2 nigts ago, both the mother colony and the frag had polyps fuly extended by the next morning when i woke up. it looks though, from the way i attached it with a rubber band that its not attaching to the rock and the band is splitting the frag in half. what is a more productive and sure fire way to do this? i know that the tension of the band has everything to do with it splitting, but is there a all toghether diff way to attach it witha better sucess rate?

 

[antony1103]

Tagging along...

 

[srbball22]

I use a rubberband, just don't make it as tight, they aren't slippery like sinularia or anything so they usually will stay on with a looser hold.

 

[ek9vboi]

Let me know when your done fragging it. I want a piece of toadstool, just a small one is cool. LMK

 

[brownchinchilla]

using a clean razor cut small pieces off of the crown. Use a toothpick to stick them to small pieces of LR. I have done it like that before. It seems to help to have a high water flow around them to help clean off the excess mucus.

 

[blackthunda77]

OK, i will see how it all goes

 

[auntdeb]

We have a huge toadstool leather that we have fragged a few times so this is what has worked very well for us. First off I recommend wearing gloves and having everything ready ahead of time. You will need a bucket with tank water to put the cuttings in while you mount them. Take out the toadstool and turn it upside down. Take a knife and cut a "doughnut" or ring from the outside edge. Put the ring in the bucket of tank water and return the "mother" to the tank so it doesn't stress too much. Then take the ring and cut it into as many pieces as you want. Attach the pieces to rubble rock with rubberbands, netting, or toothpicks. Place the "babies" in the tank and wait for them to attach. The mother colony will have no polyp extention for up to 3 weeks so don't panic. The babies should attach within 1 - 2 weeks and will look like toadstools within a month. Each time we cut ours the mother recovers quicker and grows back faster than the previous cut.

Good luck and let us know if you have any questions.

 

[atteb66]

Hi, I am tagging along too. Just about 2 weeks ago now I bought a toadstool frag. I have been just sick about loosing this leather. My maroon clown does not like the places I have tried to place it for attachment (not using any glue or band) and has been pushing it out of the way all this time....



So yesterday I took the rock I want it to attach to and placed a rubber band not tight around the rock and the base of the toadstool. This morning everything is still there but my toadstool looks really thin and the base has shrunk in width.

Will it be okay??? I don't want to loose it. The color looks great.

Darn that fish, it was actually moving that piece of rock the size of my fist out of its way. I hope oneday if my toadstool live and that clown wants to host in it that it stings it good....:lol:

I would like to send a picture to make sure you think it will be okay. It is in a med flow area too.

 

[auntdeb]

I leave all the babies on the substrate bottom in a moderate flow area. I attach most to live rock rubble pieces with needle and thread, netting and rubberband or just rubberband. The last time I got 30 babies and got tired of attaching them all so I made a pile of rubble in the tank and just dropped about a dozen babies there and waited for them to attach. As they attached I would spread them out in the tank. I even had some get blown under live rock caves and they still attached and grew fine. Toadstools are very hardy and yours will probably do fine...just give it time. I've cut over 40 frags from ours and haven't lost one yet even when I thought for sure they wouldn't make it.

There are some pictures in our gallery from our first cut. Hope this info is helpfull.

 

[blackthunda77]

Thanks auntdeb, thats alot of good info. i removed the rubber band today since they split it in half and now i just let the pieces sit in the back corner of my frag tank where there very little current. i will see how it goes from here. if its a sucess i will be more couageous to go ahead and cut another peice of the mother colony\.

 

[auntdeb]

No problem. Let me know if I can be of any more help. Next time that I frag ours I'm going to take pictures during the whole process and post them. It will be fairly soon since the mother is already about 10" across again!

 

[craigholman]

I would think you might want to try the web site www.garf.org. This is a great site that gives information about propagation of corals. This is one of the outstanding sites I have visited. Try it and see if it is of help.

 

[blackthunda77]

yea ihave tried them and i have used them. they have good info. the only thing is, that they frag it by cuttin the whole top off and then cutting into a pie section. i was worried that if i dont get part of the stalk that it wont work, but ihave learned that it doesnt matter if you have part of the stalk or not.