Fragging question

[TWallace]

I've got a fire and ice frag that has 3 individual polyps inside the colony that aren't fire and ice (and are pretty cool looking). They've got yellow fringe and bright orange center. I'd like to frag these out of the colony, because they're completely surrounded by fire and ice polyps, so I don't think they have room to produce more polyps. I've never fragged zoanthids in a situation like this. Can I just use a sharp knife to snip those individual polyps off the rock, then superglue to another rock? Or will that just kill the polyps?

Here's some pics of them. Sorry about the angle, but the odd colored polyps aren't easily viewed from the front.

 

[RevHtree]

You need to try and get your knife under the base of the polyp as much as possible. I would cut around the polyps I wanted, kinda outline them, and then kinda dig under them. You may do a little damage to a few polyps around what you intend to frag but they should bounce back. Also if this is a new colony, I would wait a week or so and let them acclimate good.

They look very nice and bright!

 

[TWallace]

Thanks RevHtree. It's not a new frag, I've had it around three months. In fact when I first got it, I accidentally ripped a small portion of it off and it fell inside a small gap in some live rock, where I couldn't easily get it out. It took root there and has expanded from about 5 polyps to 12.

 

[riptidesreef]

Rev has the right idea. You have to cut the tissue between the polyps and pry the tissue off the rock. If you tear a polyp it can start to die off then spread across the entire colony. That would be a shame .....those are beauties! If you are able to get the other polyps out I would recommend tying them to a small piece of LR with sewing thread instead of putting glue directly on the tissue. I would recommend never placing glue directly on the tissue of softies.

 

[TWallace]

Update on this. When I took the knife to the colony, I found that the small rock there were attached to was actually two small rocks, connected by tissue. This connection was right next to the odd colored zoanthids, so I was able to just cut through that tissue and now the orange center polyps are on the outside edge of the new frag. So they should have room to grow new polyps now.