Pruning large acro mother colonies

[reefpour]

I have a couple of large acro's I need to prune to allow more water flow (like I used to have). These colonies are each near the size of a volleyball. Any thoughts on how severly I can prune them without taking a chance of losing them? Should I do like one half now, and then the other half in a couple of month? Not really sure how to best go about this. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

 

[twon8]

IMO as long as your system is stable you can do it anyway you like and the acros will be fine. they are much more resilient than we give them credit for ime.

 

[xinumaster]

Wow where did you get an acro of that size.

I think you should frag it one small piece at a time and see how it reacts first. Then you can prune bigger chucks but make sure you ship a couple or two to me.

 

[alde]

I just pruned a large, fast growing acro and the branches healed over in less than a week. Some of these things just grow at a crazy pace. I would just go for it and do it in one shot.

 

[jmcmahon66]

IME you can frag as much as you want. Since our corals are thousands on individual animals, not a single organism, multiple cuts make no difference. Frag away... and what do you got? I'm always looking.

 

[TandN]

do you have any pics of your tank ????

 

[sfsuphysics]

Well one thing I would definately recommend is a pair of stainless steel long handled shears, this will allow you to cut pieces away inside the branches to get the approriate water flow.

But you should be fine with what you prune off, I recently "pruned" about 90% of an acropora microphthalma recently when I whacked it all off except the base accidently

 

[Frankysreef]

Some species are more sensitive to others... My acropora turaki, I overfragged and almost lost the colony...

A microthalma is kind of a weed in my tank, but others seem to be more sensitive to overfragging...

No more than 3 -4 frags at a time would be safe

F

 

[reefpour]

Thanks for the input all. One acro is a pink tipped I got from Garf about 4 years ago. It's actually a frag off a frag off the original frag. I believe it is A. formosa. The other acro is a blue tipped staghorn (A. nana?) I got from a LFS. Both are over 2 years old. I'd post pics, but I can't seem to get shots that do my tank justice (not that an Idaho boy's tank holds a candle to some of the pics I've seen here). I have a Kodac DX6490 camera that I don't seem to quite have a handle on. My tank looks it's best with the super actinic VHOs at "sunset", and those pics really stink. Anyway, both these acros seem pretty hardy, so I think I'll just whack away. I'll let the local club know if anyone wants some frags, they're sure welcome.

Thanks again!

Ralph