Briney Dave
New member
In response to the frag of the month article; During the past summer I was lucky enough to be apart of the BGSU Marine Lab and able to experiment with fragmentation methods for S. Flexibilus.
The razor and scissors are certainly easy ways to cut the soft/slimmy tissues and the tooth pick method is successful. We have a twist on that method. We use old mussel shells with a small hole drilled in them to jam the tooth into. This allows you to attach the shell with glue/epoxy etc in any desired position on your rock.
A surprise finding from the experiments however, was in the fragmentation method. I found that although razors and scissors attached to the shells very quickly (usually around 10 days or so), hand torn frags produced far more new growth and branching around the wound area. The frags were not pretty looking or easy to do but less than a day later back to normal in appearence.
The damage is very similar to that occuring in nature during storms or intense waves. I have hypothesized that the new growth is an adaptation for coping with regular damage and a means of quickly populating new areas.
The end product is a more bushy appearing coral (many more new branches)
Further research and longer term observations are needed to speak with a more generalized conclusion, but is an interesting option to condsider for the home aquarist.
Briney Dave
The razor and scissors are certainly easy ways to cut the soft/slimmy tissues and the tooth pick method is successful. We have a twist on that method. We use old mussel shells with a small hole drilled in them to jam the tooth into. This allows you to attach the shell with glue/epoxy etc in any desired position on your rock.
A surprise finding from the experiments however, was in the fragmentation method. I found that although razors and scissors attached to the shells very quickly (usually around 10 days or so), hand torn frags produced far more new growth and branching around the wound area. The frags were not pretty looking or easy to do but less than a day later back to normal in appearence.
The damage is very similar to that occuring in nature during storms or intense waves. I have hypothesized that the new growth is an adaptation for coping with regular damage and a means of quickly populating new areas.
The end product is a more bushy appearing coral (many more new branches)
Further research and longer term observations are needed to speak with a more generalized conclusion, but is an interesting option to condsider for the home aquarist.
Briney Dave