fragging softies

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
 
Thanks for the tips. I've used sea shells before and usually have had better adherence of the frags to a rougher substrate. It certainly would be faster, if you had a bunch of shells with holes drilled, and just went down the line jaming the toothpicks in.
 
Ok, how in the heck can your tear a green tree by hand? I can't imagine you could grab it with enough pressure to hold it given how slimey it would be.
 
The tooth pick in the bored out hole is very flexible as far as to what you would like to finally attach the frag. For my research I needed to be able to remove the frags for measurements and to be placed in other tanks after my trials were over. I placed the frag/shell combos on elevated eggcrate which was marked off in grids to help keep track of which frag was what.

Skip, It was a fun morning starting the trials. I had to grab and pinch 10 frags for that part of the trial. I also tried to use mono line loop cutting to simulate natural budding but that was even harder to do. The idea was that the mono line would pinch down in an even mannor that would be like the budding.

Long story short the mono loop method and the hand ripping resulted in a great deal of tissue damage and a shaggy wound area.

the damaged frags attached about three days after the cut versions of scissors and razor cuts but as I indicated much more branch growth around the wound area and on the tips too.

the clean cuts made nice attachment points but new growth was limited to the existing branches.

To me, the new branchs make the frag look more natural and worth the extra time.

The real focus of the experiments were to support researchers looking at flexibilus as a potential cancer treatment source. The toxin that most Sinularia has cell growth inhibiting factors.

The bio-organic chemistry is beyond where I am, even though I am working at the Masters level. My goal was to help with details that make someone elses research in the medical field easier. For hobby aquarists, having another option on shaping and designing their own reef is just a bonus.

Briney
 
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