Finally cut my ricordea polyp up.

[discented]

Hey there, I had an impulse urge to take some cutters to one of my ricordea. So i cut it down the middle. heres where i cut it. (its the pink polyp)

here is the polyp after I cut it with a white substance coming outta it.

and now the polyp that was cut off minutes after being cut. Now I will wait and watch to see how it heals.

 

[cbrand]

looks like a good cut!! nice rics too!

 

[discented]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8579637#post8579637 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cbrand
looks like a good cut!! nice rics too!

Thanks it is making me want to cut my other ones bad :rollface:

 

[kiknchikn]

Looks good to me too. I think the expelling of the guts (the white stuff) is a defensive mechanism to keep critters from nibbling on the exposed flesh. Just my theory, but its normal either way.

The way those rics look maybe you should frag them more often so you can share with the rest of us Definitely a nice collection.

 

[discented]

Do you know if they have to have a second mouth to cut them?

 

[chrisstie]

I was reading that you can do them where you cut straight down the middle of the mouth once they are detatched from a base.

I'm too nevous to do that to mine yet- I just spent this weekend convincing one to move itself off of this horrible attached branch from a tree so i can coax it onto a rock where it has room to bud\split

 

[FLricordia]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8579946#post8579946 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by discented
Do you know if they have to have a second mouth to cut them?

No worry Pat. I have mashed them by falling rock into several flattened peices and all the pieces have regrown and some still attatched. Even this slimmy mush bit was reattatching within a few hours. They are as tough as mushrooms I am finding out. There isn't one I have fragged that hasn't made it so far no matter where I have cut.

 

[discented]

DAY 2

DAY 2

Alright cool. here is day two of pictures.

The main colony

The single polyp (it fell into the sand overnight and I am leaving it.)

 

[kiknchikn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8580080#post8580080 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by chrisstie
I was reading that you can do them where you cut straight down the middle of the mouth once they are detatched from a base.

I'm too nevous to do that to mine yet- I just spent this weekend convincing one to move itself off of this horrible attached branch from a tree so i can coax it onto a rock where it has room to bud\split

I've heard that you should AVOID cutting the mouth because it slows down the overall healing time. I think the foot is what is more important to cut. If you cut it so each piece has a section of foot then both will likely survive and the piece without a mouth will grow one in time. The piece with the mouth will heal very fast and grow quicker too because you can keep feeding it.

When propped my first ric florida the piece with the mouth was healed in 4 or 5 days and eating again (which made it grow back to its original size in 2 weeks). The Ric without a mouth grew one in about 2 weeks and it is about 1/2 the size of the other because I couldn't feed it as quickly. This was done over a month ago now and both are doing wonderfully.

I haven't tried cutting one through the mouth to see what the differences are though. But I thinking being able to keep feeding one of the pieces makes a better method just by itself.

Can anyone confirm or deny any of this? All I know is I've avoided cutting the mouth and it worked perfectly for me.

 

[discented]

alright guys, I appreciate all your advise.

 

[discented]

DAY 3

DAY 3

here is the main polyp on day 3. it is rounding up pretty quick.

 

[kiknchikn]

Looks like it is almost done

 

[chrisstie]

Here's the link I was reading from the aquaculture forums if you'd like to see the perspective I read (in regards to cutting down the mouth)

http://www.farms-of-thesea.com/catalog/includes/languages/english/html/SSISSUE4_04.pdf

 

[kiknchikn]

I've actually read that article before I think, perhaps on Ricordia.org. It's a good article, but I don't like some of his methods, even though he's much more of an expert than I probably ever will be.

For instance he suggests using scissors to cut the mushrooms. This is just my opinion, but I feel that the crushing and tearing action of scissors do more damage to tissue than a straight, clean cut with a sharp razor on a cutting board, which would result in slightly slower healing time.

I didn't see any specific mentioning of cutting the mouth in the article, but I guess it is implied by this quote:

Certainly one rule that had applied to any mushroom I had worked with was that a single slice down the middle seemed to be the least intrusive and had the quickest rebound time.

So, maybe for Yumas cutting the mouth is the best method?

I still think the foot is the most important thing to cut though, and leaving the mouth intact allows you to feed one of the pieces sooner, which is always a good thing. But, I'm not an expert, or even close to one, so my opinions/ideas probably aren't worth much =P

When I have time (and enough back up Rics) for some experiments I plan to try some different methods out and I'll be sure to share my results with everyone.

 

[chrisstie]

I wouldn't use house hold scissors but there are some in the drugstore or like, pharmeseutical isle that are more.. surgical like and very, very sharp.. I could see using those..

But i've been using an exacto knife myself.. scissors may make it esier cause the damn things are so slimey- but may make it harder to.

I also hope to collect more when my 55g goes live so i can share them between my tanks

 

[kiknchikn]

I have razor sharp scissors like the ones he was describing, but I only use them to cut mushrooms off rocks that I can't remove from the tank. I definitely prefer a razor blade to those because, besides my crushring/tearing theory, I just find it's easier to make a straight cut in one shot with a razor.

I seem to have problems with the mushroom slipping out of the scissors part of the way before they can cut through it, even though they're extremely sharp. Especially smaller rics that you can't lay ontop of your two fingers and cut between them (kind of hard to describe).