Plants vs Corals

[Stoney Mahony]

I have three years twords a biology degree and have alot of experience growing plants. I have noticed many similarities between growing plants and corals, here are a few:

- Temperature has a lot to do with the structure of a plant. Higher growing temperatures often result in a thinner faster growing stem where lower temps result in a thicker stalk but shorter/slower growth. Corals seem very similar in that they will grow and metabolize faster in warm water but will result in thinner branches and bases. Cold water creates very thick, massive branches but slower growth rates.

-Yellow light spectrum around 2-3K on plants produces thin, fast growth. Blue produces thick, slow growth. I would say that we see this same thing happen when you compare corals grown under 6500K and 20K lighting.

- Plants produce an axial hormone at the top or in tallest branch. This hormone makes it grow faster than any other branch and it will stay the tallest unless something happens to it. If you cut that branch, then the next tallest starts producing the hormone and takes its place. If there is no single but several branches are the same height, they will all produce the hormone and experience a burst of rapid growth. I am not sure if there is a hormone involved but I see the same thing happen in branching SPS corals! If the tallest branch is broken, the next tallest start to take off and take its place. I have seen plenty of pictures of corals that look like long branches and the I have seen pictures of the same coral that has been fragged several times it it resembles more or a bush. Since there are so many types of corals and they all have specific growth patterns(some naturally bushy), there will be different variations displayed in each species.

-The new research shows that it is better to mount your frag on its side and this makes alot of sense. If you glue a frag with the cut end down, the tip will start to grow and it will slowly encrust at the base. When you glue the frag on its side, there is not tallest tip so it will quickly encrust. All of the tiny nodes will compete to be the tallest. After a few weeks you will see several axial tips that are all growing rapidly. This will result in a fuller colony that looks much more natural like it would on a reef.

What are your thoughts/experiences on this?

 

[Randall_James]

I have mounted frag sideways for a long time and yes it does seem to grow faster, I also "top" any runaway branches to force a fuller animal. It is still a very slow process however compared to plants, and keeping in mind it is an animal not a plant..

The experts for a long time have preached about mounting frags in a orientation other than straight up and down.

 

[Stoney Mahony]

Thanks for the reply. Just for clarification, I was not saying that it was my new research that has led to mounting frags in a different orientation, I was just trying to show the relationship between frag height & axial tip production. Also, I learned about mounting frags in different orientations a long time ago off the GARF web site but you would'nt believe how many people have never heard of it. Thanks again for chiming in.

 

[Randall_James]

Have you tried anything with the longitudinal fragging of SPS yet? I have read about it but am unsure just how one would do this. Seems a very thin dremel saw might work but I am sort of at a loss as I did not see any images of the technique.

 

[Stoney Mahony]

I have not done any longitudinal fragging but I have had some ideas on how to do it. This would only work for straight frags but I would use 4 pieces of acrylic and a larger piece to act as the bottom. Two sides would be glued at the bottom and together at the corners. The other two sides would slide so that you can adjust them for different size frags. Like you said, use a dremel with the thinnest wall possible and make a guide so that the cut will be straight. Once you have the frag locked in the acrylic holder box you should be able to make the straight, longitudinal cut. I would think this would only work with thicker branching corals. I wonder if you could use a very fine laser and make presicion cuts on tiny frags. Many slices from each frag. If placed in a "perfect" system, with how much tissue needs to be left for a frag to live?

 

[Randall_James]

I have read that a single polyp can survive. But I suppose that the mortality rate would be substantially higher than say a colony with 2 polyps. I guess some work needs done on this to determine this.

Cutting with Laser would be a great idea.

WaterJets can be used but they consume to much of the host material and if a person had a MicroJet, it would be best as it imparts no heat and consumes even less of the host material than a laser. Now to find a local outfit that would be willing to do this for me

 

[Stoney Mahony]

With frags one polyp small, it might be easier to cross closely related corals and obtain a pigment drift like the coral Steve Tyree offers. You could have a substaintial amount of failures before you suceed but one frag could be enough for 50 cross tests. Let me know if you find somebody with the eqipment! :lol:

 

[pepe.king.prawn]

the hybridized corals that steve tyree has seem like somewhat of a fluke. What would be the advantage of fragging something longitudinally, or into very small pieces? Maybe we could work on some LE GMO frags .

 

[Stoney Mahony]

One of the advantages of very small frags would be that you would have more of a chance to get another Tyree like fluke. The chances of it happening on one frag are slim to none, but what if you could turn that one frag into 50-100 trials? Much more likely to get a "mutation" with higher numbers. Another advantage is that if a one in a million color combo is discovered, you could distribute 50-100 frags per month instead of one to two which would virtually wipe out any chances of loosing the strain. It might take a year for that polyp to turn into a small frag but this kind of research has not been done(that I know of).

 

[Randall_James]

I have (now that I found out) a few of his hybrids. I purchase some of this stuff just because I like the colors and going through some of my documentation I have half a dozen or so of his mutants. I was unaware he was doing things like this actually. I just figured it was some sort of sales hook to call them LE

 

[Stoney Mahony]

As far as I know, Tyree only has one of these "mutants". here is the picture and description that I saw. http://www.reeffarmers.com/limitedgraftedsimplex.htm
So you have some Tyree corals huh?:eek1: He really has some nice stuff. I think that they are LE frags because he and a few others are the only ones that have colonies. Once they have been distributed for years and enough people have them, he takes them off of the LE list.

 

[Randall_James]

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