Cyphastrea control

[Goldndoodle]

My LFS has some amazing cyphastrea frag mounts that are fully encrusted and look incredible. They have both the superman and meteor shower colorations. I am considering picking one up, because I find the symmetry of the polyps fascinating.

My setup is a Nano Cube 28G. So the tank is not huge, and I don't want the cyphastrea to take over the whole tank. Is there some way to control the growth? My thought is to put it on the sand bed, and when it grows more than I want, I can pull it out, trim it back, frag the trimmings to sell back to the LFS, and put it back in the tank. Does that seem like a good plan?

Are there other ways to control the growth? My LFS has been saying if I don't want it to take over the tank, to not let it near live rock, as it will encrust on to the live rock, and be nearly impossible to remove.

Thoughts and opinions would be helpful.

 

[discocarp]

The sand idea is fine. Here are some others:

You can chisel it off rock for frags.

You can put it on a rock that sits on smaller rubble rocks, then replace the rubble as it grows onto rubble. And the removed rubble are now nice frags!

You can just kill it with a kalk paste or putting epoxy over it.

 

[Goldndoodle]

Thanks! I like the sit it on top of rubble idea.

I'm not really fond of frag mounts - there are a few that I have to deal with - like for my acans and a toadstool. The idea of putting the cyphastrea frag on a rock to let it grow on to, then remove the frag and put the rock on top of rubble sounds like a much better plan.

This is what I love about this forum - I wasn't thinking like that. But now I've got a plan that works for me, and I'll be heading off to the LFS as soon as they open! On today's shopping list - superman cyphastrea frag, a couple small pieces of live rock, and a mummy eye chalice frag.