Can Hammer Coral be fragged?

[Mike 1911A1]

Is it possible to frag hammer coral? If so, how does one go about it?

Mike

 

[IslandCrow]

Well, my LFS regularly sells hammer frags, so I'd say the answer is yes. As for how, I can't help you there. It looks like they keep the individual stalk intact and frag it somewhere near the base. Truthfully, it looks like they just use the old wishbone technique. If no one answers, I'll be sure to ask how they do it next time I'm there. I think I have a picture of one of the frags I bought in my gallery.

 

[KingDiamond]

Usually you just break off one of the branches. Some hammers tend to grow as an unbranched skeleton so I don't think you can frag them without risking loosing the whole colony. I have herd of people being sucessful at doing it but it is risky. Most frags are from branched colonies.

Brad

 

[Opcn]

Branching hammers can be fragged as simply as cutting the branches where they meet, Wall type hammers can only be fragged safely when the walls split, if you cut right in the middle of a wall then you risk killing a few polyps

 

[peecook]

Opcn (or anyone else), on a wall hammer, have you fragged one before?

i think its obvious a branching hammer can be cut, but i would be interested to hear about experiences and techniques on the wall hammer.

 

[Mike 1911A1]

I think mine is a wall hammer as there are no distinct branches that I can tell. It's about 3 - 4.5" and looks like there are 3 clusters but I would not classify them as branches.

Mike

 

[Mike 1911A1]

Here is a link to a pic of my new Hammer:
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=156905
Maybe you can tell me if it's wall or branching.

Mike

 

[David Grigor]

Yes, Mike yours looks to be the non-branching type.

I have a non-branching that if I never fragged the thing it would be over 20" around by now ( No exaggeration ) about 6 years old and was pretty good sized ( 8"+ ) when I got it. . I have fragged at a least 6 times now. All frag chunks over 6" after cutting. Never lost a one of them. Sometime where it split may get more damaged but never even come close to loosing the whole thing.

I just use a dremel starting from the bottom to get a nice score started. Then pry it apart with a flathead screwdriver. Some will split the skeleton, then use an x-acto type knife to cut the fleshy part. I usually just rip it and recovers just fine.

Important to say that if should be a very healthy one. Mine has always had over an inch thick fleshy part on the sides before I attempt to cut it. The one in the pic from Mike does not appear to have a thick fleshy sides so I would wait.

 

[Ratkiller]

This might sound like a dumb question: This this done in the tank? Cause I was always told to never take a hmmer out of the watter.

 

[Agu]

Here's a good article about fragging LPS with a solid skeleton,

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-03/ac_sp/feature/index.php


Frogspawn can be taken out of the water. Like all LPS that have polyps that expand it's best to "irritate" it in the water so the polyps deflate. Just grabbing it by the base and moving it back and forth is usually enough to get it to close up.

 

[peecook]

thanks for the link Agu, that was an amazing article.