Taking zoas off frag plugs

[FishNutty]

how do you get zoas off frag plugs? i've got a bunch that are on little rocks on frag plugs, and i'd like to get a few off the sand but i can't figure out how to get the things off without hurting/breaking something!
as always, thanks for helping a noobie out:smurf:

 

[WaffleWalffle22]

Pull the rock off. I always do that if I wanna put them on my LR. Zoas are very hardy, so if you accidentally cut one in half with your nail or something they will repair in a week or less.

 

[ddwbeagles]

Exactly....usually you can seperate the frag from the plug at the glue bond with little force. Of course, once you pull the frag out of the water, they shrink and become less likey to damage. In extreme cases you could always use your dremel with a diamond bit blade or even a fine tooth blade to remove it.

 

[ehren78]

I use rubber gloves, safety goggles and a good Exacto knife to remove them from the plug. Try to cut at the glue if possible like mentioned above.

 

[FishNutty]

^okay. that makes sense, it's kind of what i was thinking, but i didn't want to go hack away on my corals without asking some people who have actually done it, lol!

 

[WaffleWalffle22]

Gloves, goggles, and other safety equipment are good, however I, and I'm sure many others, live on the edge. We never use goggles or gloves!
After you preform the operation be sure to upload some photographs onto this thread so we can see your work.

 

[lcs]

I would be very interested to see pictures as well. I have a nice size frag that is on an incredibly ugly plastic plug and a small colony on a 3" disc. Blech! I've also never done anything like that before and would be nervous.

 

[FishNutty]

..... Blech! I've also never done anything like that before and would be nervous.

i am a total wreck, lol! i was going to work on it this afternoon, but i got kinda sick, hopefully i can get it done tomorrow or saturday. i'll do my best to post pics:bigeyes:

 

[IridescentLily]

Hi Fishnutty *waves*
Good to see you here.

 

[ToadSprocket]

Once you do it once you'll see it's not that bad. I've totally botched the job once or twice and they bounced back.

 

[FishNutty]

finally got it done[had family med stuff going on over the weekend], it went really well! i ended up using a box cutter to pop them off and then glued them onto where i wanted them. i even used a razor to frag a small piece off one of the bigger zoas! i'm so proud of myself, lol! i'll try to post pics when life settles back down

 

[DivineStler]

good job. it's always scary your first time. once you do some pretty awful stuff on accident and have no ill results you realize it's not really as "fragile" as you think.

I was fragging a couple heads off of a frogspawn over the bathroom sink once and it slipped from my hands bounced off the wall and into the toilet. I was convinced that it was doomed. Couple hours later it was wide open and happy as can be.

 

[rizakaniza]

good job. it's always scary your first time. once you do some pretty awful stuff on accident and have no ill results you realize it's not really as "fragile" as you think.

I was fragging a couple heads off of a frogspawn over the bathroom sink once and it slipped from my hands bounced off the wall and into the toilet. I was convinced that it was doomed. Couple hours later it was wide open and happy as can be.

HAHAHAHAHA! That is hilarious! :lol: :rollface:

 

[exoticsteve2001]

I use a hammer and chisel to get the zoas off rocks so they are attached to rock so I can easily glue them to other rocks and they dont blow off.Trust me.....You arent going to hurt them.

 

[ToadSprocket]

Nicely done! Those little buggers can be tougher than we give them credit for

 

[vaporlockv2]

I used a razor blade to scrape them off of the plug I had. I wanted to glue them onto a piece of rock. No damage done at all and all the polyps were open within an hr of being scraped moved and glued to the rock.

 

[scuba rick]

Thats funny! I had a small rock that had about ten or so. I picked it up to move it to more light, and noticed that there were some just entangled. I just pulled them apart with my fingers, it was fairly easy. I glued the other half to another rock, now they both doubled there size on opposite sides of the tank.

 

[lcs]

You've all got me convinced that I should give this a try. I just can't stand the small colony I have that's on a 2" disc anymore. It shouldn't be too bad as it's on a 4x1" rock that was then glued to the disc. Yeah, I don't know why either.

 

[fstar25]

Re: Taking zoas off frag plugs

i just a new colony glued to a frag plug but tge plug was left on its side for a long time before i got they. the had grown All over that plug. so i took the plunge this week and cut about 15 polyps off the plug and glued them to a rock. the 5 i left on the plug look great and so far about 1/2 of the transfered polyps are looking good.

i tried to glue 2 to the back wall of my biocube. but i didnt score the plastic abnd first snail that investigated knocked them off.

 

[fstar25]

Re: Taking zoas off frag plugs

pic of the newly fragged zoo's