Odd Question- Grafting SPS (acro)

[AMAYEU]

I have an odd question.

Can you graft a limb of an acro/staghorn to a different one. For instance in horticulture you take a walnut clipping and graft that to a rooted wild black walnut tree.

I am thinking of taking a healthy acro and frag a branch, towards the top and never near the base. This will be the main stock or tree. I would then frag a different acro and glue it to the 1st acro. The gluing would be different. Both branches would meet, then place a fine and tiny amount of glue on the outside so both are joined together. The other way is rubber band the branches together.

Anyone experiment with this. Will this work?

 

[boodlefish]

actually kind of... (form my understanding) there are a lot of variables both corals need to be about the same in terms of; how fast they grow, how aggressive they are to other corals, and as close to the same family or species as possible.
i had a teal green/blue tip stag and a green bali slimmer meet at first all was good the appeared to be growing into and around each other but the bali slimmer ended up growing to fast for the stag... now i have a slimmer growing around that stag like a tree and a barbed wire fence.

i have seen a thread here where someone did this with montipora it was really cool, and seemed to work great.
good luck with the experiment.

 

[swanny]

The coral may grow around each other as said in post before mine but if you want them to "morph" into one living acro. no way, nature doesn't work like that.

 

[rekn]

its been done before and all i can say is search around. its hard to get info about because a few retailers were trying it out.

 

[eon]

theres a steve tyree arco called Acropora divaricata "Green jacket" that may be what your talking about but i dont know whether it was started as a graft or a mutation

 

[vegita51]

I know there was a TOTM awhile back that actually grafted two montipora pieces and it actually worked. One was green and the other purple and there was some really interesting results. This is something I always wondered as well and thought that I might do it to a chalice some day.

 

[jcolletteiii]

http://www.garretts-acropolis.com/

Steve T. gets his 'grafted' pieces from Steve Garrett. I think Steve G's process is to let an Acro grow into another coral (green Pocilipora). As the two corals touch, their pigments mix, and you get swirls of different color.

 

[29reef]

There's color/pigment grafting and actual coral grafting. The OP seems to mention coral grafts. Coral grafts work within the same species of coral. Anything else you just have two corals living next to eachother on a branch. IMO there's no need to graft the same two species of coral together, I'd rather see two different corals then a frankencoral.

 

[boodlefish]

LOL "Frankencoral" LOL

 

[werdlone]

Different species of corals will fight and compete with each other either outgrowing the other or by chemical warfare..so I don't think grafting will work. I have seen montipora species grow together and look cool, but never really become one coral. They try to outgrow each other and you get a nice mix of colors.
I have a green slimer (a. yongei) and a blue tort that have grown together and the green slimer is just wrapping around it.

The grafted corals are just exchange of zooxanthellae. In other cases there is an infection of the zooxanthellae that makes it appear to be grafted with green flourescent zooxanthellae.

Here is a cool pic of montipora..

here is how it started...these are not mine btw

 

[Jordani]

Bump

 

[seminolecpa]

Faint and hard to see in the picture but here is an example of GFP infection in my Setosa (look on the right side)

I am playing with grafting some other like corals together as well. Took two totally colord different granulosas and mounted them next to each other. So far so good they seem to be encrusting and haven't killed each other.

this one

and this one

 

[fijiblue]

IMHO, grafting it is more complicated than just putting similar species together. I think there is more to it such as with human and blood types. Think about it, if it was that easy it would be more common and apparent in nature.

 

[thebanker]

Here is a cool pic of montipora..

here is how it started...these are not mine btw

That's really cool. I have a brown and green Monti growing in close proximity... I hope this happens!

 

[jkoot]

I was browsing and came across this older thread....anyone manage to do anything similar to the above monti?? I am interested in trying this as well!

>jason

 

[Bpb]

I'm trying with a purple and red monti but they won't attatch. The purple doesn't bond when they meet, it just turns and goes up and over. Now I have to keep breaking it off so it doesn't smother th red one

 

[tdb320reef]

My orange and purple digi fused but I want to see the orange or purple on the other side of the fusion. Birdsnest also fuse which is pretty cool. I have not tried acros yet.

 

[Dog boy Dave]

I had a green efflo grow into one of my purple efflos. They didn't fight and grew into a singe piece. I planted a green branch into a purple piece and they fused with some of the green mixing with the purple. After about 6 months i cant see the green anymore. I am currently trying to fuse a purple branch into a green table to see what they do long term. Normally different SPS will react with some form of aggression when it touches another different coral. However, I have seen closely related corals fuse and grow together instead of staying separate and fighting. Pictures (and frags) to follow if the efflos show color mixes long term.

 

[Bratyboy2]

I wanna try a blue stag and a green stag together....those would be awesome!