Propagating encrusting corals

[Jefe12234]

I have a colony of encrusting Porites that I'd like to frag onto another rock, or even onto my overflow. It's growing on a rather boulder-like rock along with a bubble coral. It got me thinking, how do you frag an encrusting coral like this? Do you just place another rock against it and wait patiently? Is there a way to remove a piece that doesn't involve a hammer and chisel?

It's slowly spreading across the rock it's on, but I'd like to get a frag or two growing in other parts of the tank. Anyone have any experience with this?

-Chris

[Frick-n-Frags]

I never had an encrusting Porites, but I had a huge Turbinaria which got pretty massive in its shape (ie big dense block of coral)

The biggest pair of sidecutters I have were a joke to even think about putting a dent in it. I considered sawing it but I don't have a bandsaw handy, so I selected the sharpest chisel and a hefty hammer.

I quickly set it down on the floor on newspaper positioned the chisel and gave it one really good hit. Kablooie! it fragged into about 3 pieces and some shards which I quickly put back in the water (a bucket of water) The sliming that PO'd coral did was awesome, but it settleed down and I put it back in the system.

Even though it is a major break, I think the trauma to the coral isn't as bad as handling it for 5 minutes while "a snip here, a snip there" is going on. It was out of the water less than 30 seconds and was hit only once.

(practice on a couple pieces of LR to get your stroke dialled in)
like hiddendragonet would probably say "Focus your chi so that you will break the coral on the first hit" she-zhe sifu!!

[GARFVolunteer]

PVC pipe cutters are inexpensive and may do the trick. They have a fairly wide opening and will rachet. I have used them successfully on encrusting SPS corals.

Here is a link that shows a picture.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=39749

Scott

[jimroth]

My encrusting porites is fairly fragile at the edge and I'm able to break off small pieces which I superglue onto rock. Lately I've been getting nice non-encrusting, sheeting (foliose?) growth which allows even easier fragging.