Just fragged some bowsers

[Redseadragon12]

had a 7 polyp frag and cut off 5 polyps.

I left 2 on the original plug. Of these, one of the 2 remaining opened and all the rest are closed and not looking so hot.

So I am now down to 1 lol..

Anyways is there any "rescue" therapy I can do on the remaining 5 closed zoanthids? I could always treat 1 of the 5 for testing purposes. These polyps were only cut on the side of the mat not at the base which is whats frustrating. They barely had any damage done and yet they are responding so poorly. I also dont think water parameters are an issue since there is 1 happy open polyp.

 

[Redseadragon12]

Also I have tons of other zoas in the tank and the bowsers have responded the worst to fragging. I usually cut zoas right off the plug at the base and then dice them up and they open up immediately after adding to the tank.

 

[Redseadragon12]

Anyone?????

 

[KirbyBTF]

Dip them in some CoralRX. I've always had good results from that. Keep them shaded too, so they can focus all their resources on recovery. Obviously not 100% shaded but just don't blast them with light. Those are some expensive polyps to lose lol.

 

[121]

How sharp was the knife?

 

[Tenor]

Just leave them alone to recover. They sometime needs couple of days before open again.

 

[ItzJustinN]

why are you fragging if there is only 7 polyps?

imo you are risking losing them all.

 

[Tenor]

why are you fragging if there is only 7 polyps?

imo you are risking losing them all.

A lot of people did these when they just have a few polyps on the frag.

 

[Piper27]

I agree, fragging frags should be illegal. I think people should focus on growing frags into colonies. Then frag them when they get to big or whatever. I wonder how many people have done the same thing, cutting bowser polyps off a frag and having them melt, in the hopes of getting money back or making money.
I hope that some recover though, good luck.

 

[Redseadragon12]

Yea used a brand new knife... I didnt frag them to sell, however with zoanthids it seems that if you cut them and spread them around the tank they will grow muchhhh faster as single polyps. Ive done it with all my other frags and have 1000s of zoanthids in the tank all from single polyps. However, I see that these bowsers do not react the same way to cutting as other zoanthids. They are probably "melters" as in the whole colony will melt no matter how large it is when cut. Maybe they are more susceptible to bacteria or something else.

 

[GKorals]

i used to think the same but some zoas grow faster when cut..i had some armor of gods that started at 3 went to 10 and melted back to one..well that grew back to 3 fragged them all and now have like 10 on each and grow back every time i frag

 

[Redseadragon12]

I agree, fragging frags should be illegal. I think people should focus on growing frags into colonies. Then frag them when they get to big or whatever. I wonder how many people have done the same thing, cutting bowser polyps off a frag and having them melt, in the hopes of getting money back or making money.
I hope that some recover though, good luck.

I also think its safer to have multiple small colonies than one large due to some of the rate of infections you can lose an entire colony in a matter of days. I have many many small colonies and they seem to be doing very will I think this fraggin issue is just specific to this strain of zoanthids. I am dipping in Furan 2 now hopefully it is just a bacterial infection.

 

[Piper27]

Yea we spread our zoanthids like that, especially with one's that randomly melt. We have doubles of almost every type we have. Backups are good to have. We only cut things once they grow out to around 20 polyps, and we have had much better luck doing this. Also since we left everything alone and stopped cutting anything, nothing has melted or died. Only time we cut now is if the polyps have grown away from the colony.

 

[Redseadragon12]

2 now opened and 5 have died hopefully the rest pull through. Apparently they are just extremely fragile to cutting. Other possible observation: they are sensitive to irritation. I have lots of hermits and a high bioload so there is a greater concentration of heterotrophic bacteria swimming around.

Future trial: I will prepare a batch of saltwater and match it to that of my tank and use a separating container in the display so they have zero bacteria and no crabs for at least a few days until fully healed.