ways to multiply florida rics.

[walmart]

How I have heard of cutting it into 1/4ths from the mouth. Does this work? Any other ways?

 

[Azurel]

Yea that works, but safe to just cut in half little less stress....Or just let nature take it's course.....There is also gravity propagation. Where you take a small piece of rubble get the ric to attach and then let it hang off which will cause the ric to stretch out and eventually split. I have done that with a special pink Florida ric I have and it works takes awhile though.

 

[walmart]

Ok cut in half it is then. I bought the piece as 2 polyps in October, it is now January. Still 2 polyps. How long does it take the polyps to reattach and regrow the other half?
Thanks for the reply.

 

[Azurel]

IT will be fairly quick, I had a buddy try and frag a yellow off one of his rocks and actually cut it in half by accedent. I brought it home anyway and with 4-5 days it was almost whole again. Now 3 weeks later you can't tell it was eer fragged and has a new mouth already.

 

[walmart]

Ok cool, when it develops a new mouth can I cut it in half again? Or should I wait longer?

 

[Azurel]

I would wait a little longer for the mouths to seperate within the polyp so that they are about half of the polyp. This way you will know that they will both have enough tissue to help with regrowth.

 

[Jeff]

My rules of thumb include:
If it is taking food, it is ready for fragging.
Frags heal faster if there is a pice of mouth but not necessary.
Low flow while healing.
The best way to attach is to let them attach to shells or rock rubel then glue that to frag plug or live rock.
Almost every pice you cut will heal and give another ricordia if water quality, flow, and light are ok.
Place frags on bottom of tank when possible so that cleanup crew can clean them.
Dont be in a hurry, patience is important.
It is our responsibility to frag and share nicer ricordias and other easy to grow corals.

Freshly cut pieces waiting to attach

Growout

 

[Jeff]

Sorry for the dark blue pictures. I use (2) 175 watt Reeflux 12K's over a 40 gallon tank. My camera is crappy.

Here is a little better picture showing some ricordias growing out. You can see the cleanup crew doing their job.

 

[Azurel]

Good stuff E7....

 

[DetectiveTofu]

A little Ric farm you've got there!

 

[Jeff]

Its a labor of love. I especially like to prop the cool colors and trade them with friends.

 

[Lance M.]

Wow nice frags Jeff, a lot of them too. what other cleaners do you have besides the snails? or are they it?

 

[jefathome]

I have a decent size ric (same blue/peach color as the top left ones in your pic) that has had 2 mouths for about a month now, but it wont split!! So I assume that cutting it in half should work no problem?

If I just cut it without taking them off the current rock, will they grow back together, or stay as two seperate individuals?

 

[mskurdah]

When I wanted to move my rics to a different rock I couldn't help but cut some small pieces when I tried to detach them -- all of them grew new mouths after a few months.

I've had the same results when you just leave them alone -- they get a lot bigger and sometimes grow new mouths, but they won't separate. I even have some that have six mouths, but still don't separate.

Happy cutting....

 

[fazgood]

E7

E7

What is your typical survival percentage rate? Looks like a really nice setup. You should create a how to guide as a lot of people would be interested.

Faz

 

[Trotter]

Nice setup!

 

[Jeff]

fazgood, the survival rate is almost 100% The florida ricordias are very healthy and strong.
Trotter, thx

 

[SWINGRRRR]

http://www.reefvideos.com/
Second to the last row, Second video in.