Jestersix

Propagating corals

scuba71

scuba71

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Just curious do people propagate proactively these days or let nature take it's course and wait it out. How was your success rate for each method? I would love to work on a DBTC, but I am afraid of not being successful. My intention to propagate is not for monetary/profit reasons, but mainly accelerating DBTC. Any advise/suggestions/comments/concerns?
 
scuba71 said:
Just curious do people propagate proactively these days or let nature take it's course and wait it out. How was your success rate for each method? I would love to work on a DBTC, but I am afraid of not being successful. My intention to propagate is not for monetary/profit reasons, but mainly accelerating DBTC. Any advise/suggestions/comments/concerns?
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This is a hard question to answer as it's too broad. I would say it depends on what corals you are trying to propagate. Each coral is unqiue and different. Some are far eaiser than others.

Meaning some anyone could propagate. While there are some that haven't been done successfully yet. Still others that people attempt but there are low success rates.

Also dbtc or better yet a frag swap is a great way to get easy to propagate coral. I would recommend trying leathers, or zoas as the easiest to grow out and frag.

If you have a specific type in mind mention it so that you could get feedback that's directed towards a specific type.

Some people do actively propagate I do with leathers and I have with mushrooms. I've seen videos of people doing it to expensive scolymia corals. (Most probably wouldn’t dream of taki g the chance of cutting such an expensive coral) others like nems can be cut in a way to make more. Yet feeding them directly can also make them split faster.

Beyond leathers or common type mushrooms or sps, I lean towards the natural method of letting them grow out.
 
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MichaelB said:
This is a hard question to answer as it's too broad. I would say it depends on what corals you are trying to propagate. Each coral is unqiue and different. Some are far eaiser than others.

Meaning some anyone could propagate. While there are some that haven't been done successfully yet. Still others that people attempt but there are low success rates.

Also dbtc is a great way to get easy to propagate coral. I would recommend trying leathers, or zoas as the easiest to grow out and frag.

If you have a specific type in mind mention it that you could get feedback that's directed towards a specific type.

Some people do actively propagate I do with leathers and I have with mushrooms. I've seen videos of people doing it to expensive scolymia corals. (Most probably wouldn’t dream of taki g the chance of cutting such an expensive coral) others like nems can be cut in a way to make more. Yet feeding them directly can also make them split faster.

Beyond leathers or common type mushrooms or sps, I lean towards the natural method of letting them grow out.
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Really looking at SPS and LPS. For example. strawberry shortcake and rainbow Acans. I am curious if there some tips/tricks to help accelerate without compromising
 
scuba71 said:
Really looking at SPS and LPS. For example. strawberry shortcake and rainbow Acans. I am curious if there some tips/tricks to help accelerate without compromising
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Acans direct feeding helps them grow faster, but no cheat code for them, some varriants of acans grow faster than other types. Tank farmed acans are what you want over wild ones if possible.


He's our bay area acan expert. Santa rosa if i'm not mistaken also he has a booth at cfm as well. He could definite get you some nice ones proven advice as well.

For high end sps stable conditions and time there is no magic potion to speed up sps. I hear that higher ph can help but equally important is just keeping the numbers stable sps is a major rabbit hole. Many thoughts and aproaches and what works for someone else maynot work for you. Again stability is key I think.

One of our sps gurus will probably give more detailed advice. So please don’t take me as any type of expert.
 
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Acans feeding is key

Acros… Everyone has a different way of growing acros

Some acros never stop branching and I’d expect those ones to do well fragged up. For example carduus never stops growing for me - every tip is a growth tip, and it branches before it encrusts. My ORA hawkins echinata also just grows without encrusting much

But others will stall for forever and just try to encrust when fragged

I think for those it depends
 
I have always like to physically frag my corals. Sometimes, I’ll place a rock or plug close to the coral and let it encrust over, then break it off. I’ve always sliced up mushrooms, but think I’m just going to see if my current one will leave babies instead of fragging it.

I’ve also always wanted to try the blender method with a mushroom and see if it actually works lol
 
The yumas and rhoadactis(sp) mushrooms breed like mad in my current tank to the point where the yumas are nearly invasive on one part of my rock (you are welcome to frags of them if you want. I don’t frag zoas for safety reasons but I have a couple attached to snail shells that may be given at the next swap.

Tend to frag sps as it’s easy to “snap” off a piece of the digitatas, pavona, bird nest or
Purple stylos for frag swaps. My acros are inconsistent-I have the “purple” beast that grows like a weed and then another one that grows slower than anything.

The yumas and mushrooms proliferate in almost any nutrient system (esp high) -while I have had respective growth at higher PO4 (.6) or recent I have lowered my PO4 to about .15 and seeing faster encrusting with sps and my birds nest seems a lot happier.
 
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I know you don’t have much of a choice with accidentals…But is there a specific location to cut SPS frogs? Or do you simply pick what looks good from a frag size and go with that?
 
scuba71 said:
I know you don’t have much of a choice with accidentals…But is there a specific location to cut SPS frogs? Or do you simply pick what looks good from a frag size and go with that?
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We will be having a fragging workshop coming up look for details on it. There you could see it done in person. As well as get to frag corals.

It depends on the growth pattern and rarity of the sps in question. A common faster growing one can be very chunky almost a mini colony size frag. Rarer ones can be a numb less than 1/2 a inch.

Some will frag corals on a side that's encroching on other corals or at risk of being shaded by something. There isn’t a specific perfect place to frag sps just depends on the situation and purpose of fragging the coral. Normally one of the longer branches or just below a splitting branch to make larger frags. You would in most cases avoid cutting to close to the base of the coral unless there is a reason you want to.
 
scuba71 said:
What kind of feed? PhytoFeast, plankton? Anything recommended or that works best?
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I regularly feed live phytoplankton to my systems. I have also used PhytoFeast and other phyto products but I believe live foods are always better. I view live phyto as a major building block to the health and nutritional levels of my inhabitants. It feeds a majority of my inhabitants in some way, directly and indirectly. I actually just got a fresh batch of tetraselmis from @Coral Hub (Nathan). I highly recommend getting yourself live phyto from him. The best I've tried from multiple sources.

LPS - I feed a variety of mixed concoctions at least 2-3x/week. Sometimes I will hold off for a week to allow them to digest and recover. Plus to reduce nutrient issues. My mixed concoctions are very nutrient rich and dense. So I target feed mostly. Any residual foods get broadcast throughout the tank and I'm certain my sps grab up the miniscule particles.

An example of what I mix up is:
Live phyto, thawed mysis, RN roti-feast, pac-pods, artic-pods, powdered coral foods (reef roids, benereef, reef chili, etc.), and TDO pellets (ground and whole).

Also, I have fed my LPS whole pellets of RN TDO and/or Benepets LPS Pellets.

For sps target feeding, I mix phyto with micro powdered coral foods. I have also mixed in Reef Nutrition's Oyster Feast and RotiFeast. Some sps have large enough polyps to accept larger pods. Most don't though. So I try to keep my sps target feeding to the smallest available foods I have on hand.
 
scuba71 said:
What kind of feed? PhytoFeast, plankton? Anything recommended or that works best?
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Variety is the spice of life. Feed your fish often with quality frozen mixed in with flakes and pellets because fish poop is great coral food. Feed the corals with phyto, coral foods like reef roids and benepets, and amino acids. Then start to look at keeping your phosphates under 1.0 or so :)
 
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