Propagating Fungia sp. (Plate coral)

cotter4601

New member
I have a nice orange short tenticle plate coral that I would like to frag. At first I didn't think I could, but I found a article in the Dec 2006, reefkeeping magazine. I could just follow the steps outlined in the article, but I'm wondering what kind of success rate there is? Is this something that is done regularly? Any of you fragged a fungia sp or Cycloseris sp?
 
Last edited:
The success rate is usually quite good. Just follow the directions in the article and you will be fine.

sanjay.
 
i did this a few years ago and 3 of the 5 peices surived the the 2 that didn't make it were to small and didn't have a peice of the mouth on them. i've also heard that you can punch a hole into them with a nail and they will pop out babies regularly.

1st cut
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/bmkindig/894ab95b.jpg

2nd cut
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/bmkindig/P1010113.jpg

pic of cuts
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/bmkindig/P1010117.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/bmkindig/P1010120.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/bmkindig/P1010119.jpg

coming apart
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/bmkindig/P1010122.jpg

the 3 that made it you can see the left and right peice both had a small segment that came off the main peice.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/bmkindig/P1010126.jpg







http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/bmkindig/P1010502.jpg
 
So, the frag has to contain some part of the mouth? The reason I ask is because I didn't see that in the reefkeeping article.

Thanks for the pics, btw.
 
There was a guy on here, I think is the LPS forum (maybe coral prop. though?) that fragged one. He didn't have pieces of the mouth in every single cut, but I think they all made it anyway. I know he had a picture of one frag that was making a new mouth. good luck!
tom
 
Fungia are rather durable. They are common to shallow reef environments with tons of flow and surges. They even roll around with storms in the wild.

For the fragging to be successful, make sure they are in good flow, good light, and top water quality; they all should be fine. If you are a little scared about doing the fragging, try just breaking it in half and waiting a few weeks for it to heal. After that you can probably frag it again and make smaller pieces, at least that way you can keep a half as your own or as a back up.

I fragged one about a year ago. I broke the skeleton and then used a knife to cut the flesh so it wouldnt tear making a clean cut for the skin to heal. I had a very good success rate and most of the frags were traded. I still have one piece of it left, which is almost as big as the original now, I dont hand or spot feed it or it would have surpassed the original in growth.

The only pieces that didn't make it were little sections of the fungia that were damaged pretty bad in the fragging process. I even had a few little fins off the skeleton that made it and grew. It didn't matter whether or not each frag had a mouth for me, the ones that didn't have a mouth grew a mouth within a month or so of fragging.

Take your time and all should be well.
 
I did actually. However I decided not to go the dremel route, but just snapping it into pieces with bone cutters. Snapping along the mouth was easy. Then I thought I'd try to cut it into 4's, but I ended up with 11 pieces! Some are very small. As of right now, all pieces are doing great. The larger ones are already showing signs of growing. I think if I do it again I will score the backside with a dremel. It was a lot stronger than I expected.
 
Sure thing... but I don't know if I'll make it to this swap. It's the first day of fishing season. I'll have a better idea when it gets closer to the swap.

Here are a few in the lower left:
frags004.jpg


Here is a pic of some of the smaller ones:
tankfeb09002.jpg


I read it's a slow grower so we'll see....
 
if you in the lake/scream bye 6-7 you should have you limit by 9-10 home shower and be at the swap by11-12 lol it's no hurry there the next time
 
lol! Most of the guys at fishing camp have newborns, including myself, so there is a chance we will skipping this year.... We usually don't fish too much the first day anyway. I'll put them up on fragswapper if i'm going to make it.
 
Back
Top