My hacked up anemone

[peege]

Guess I'll do my part to get on a roll here. I was mystifying a few people at the meeting with tall tales of anemones and razor blades. Well folks, the anemone I cut in two is fine. I now have two from one. It's not the most symetrical anemone I've seen, but healthy nonetheless.

You all can sleep better in your beds now!

[ThingsReef]

Never done an anemone but I now have 2 more yellow leathers, two more of the toadstool leathers, 5 pieces of dead coral with green star polyps, etc. Leslie was out of town last weekend and after I got the boys to bed (and drank a couple brews), I got bored and started cutting and glueing. Much more fun than I remember arts and crafts being.

I like knives and scissors hu hu hu hu. Maybe we could do a frag party at your place this spring or summer! We could pitch in a few bucks and get you to order a leather or two and some other easy frag corals.

[peege]

Yeah I have been propping more and more of the leathers that have been sticking around and growing real big. I got a bunch of colts and fingers going. I also went to town on mushrooms forcing them to split as well.

[ThingsReef]

Finger Leathers like the Devil's Hand give me fits. Colts are alright but my Devil's hand laid around forever and didn't attach...then disappeared. How do you split the shrooms? I wait for them to multiply and get ready to move themselves. Not real productive...

[minh_han]

JP, glad to hear that the hacked anemone is doing well. I have found a few hitchhiked anemone on the LR I got, but for the most part, they have died within a few days of my discovering them. My tank isn't ready to have anything as sensitive as anemones yet, but hopefully will be ready to accept other more hardy plants and livestock. I was actually thinking about getting a pair of mollies to help the tank cycle, as I've heard they can acclimate to SW without too many problems. I wonder if it'll be harder since my SG is at 1.026 right now.

[eifert]

Guys.... you have to tell me how to frag a mushroom... do you take it out of the water and exacto knife it? How do you cut it? I want mushrooms everywhere in my 120, but I need guidance.

Thanks a bunch...

Steve-o

[peege]

Minh, just use the uncured rock or some raw shrimp. That will cycle your tank just fine.

Eifert, I'll tell ya how I did the anemone and how I did my mushrooms. It's graphic, please turn the youngins away from the screen.

K, I picked me a nice healthy flower anemone (seeing as I have two dozen and they're relatively cheap). I took him off his rock and placed him on the glass brace of the tank. I then took two 10oz saltwater fishing weights and attached them to me to keep me descended. If you're doing a more expensive anemone, I'd suggest heavier weights accordingly.

Then I took a nice new razor blade and sliced the anemone right down the middle. I wasn;t sure if I needed to split the mouth in two or not, so I did. Placed both back in the tank right where they originally came from and within a day or two they were both inflated and seemingly happy. Again, not the best looking things aftter being cut in half, but let's be realistic with the expectations.

The mushrooms I just left in the tank and took another clean razorblade and sliced them like a pie from the mouth to the edge. Make one clean slice. Even if it doesn;t force a new shroom, it will rarely kill the mother. In a few days it was totally healed up and I had a new blue striped mushroom.

HTH

[Bruce]

Speaking of frags...
I accidentally fragged my orange Montipora while cleaning the tank. It was my first time, so I went gentle. (I wrote that line just for JP :p )

Mushrooms are really easy. Just decap them like you would a regular mushroom. A new cap will grow back real quick. Getting the old cap to stick is the hard part.

Bill, I've noticed that my leather frags don't do too well either. But they are going in my little ten gallon at work that is a pretty harsh environment. To get them to stick, I've gotten so annoyed that I've resorted to rubber bands. It works.

I desparately need to frag my frog spawn. He's stinging everyone. I still feel uncomfortable doing it though. Also got to do a colt I got from Eric. It's growing out of the tank!

[peege]

The frogspawn is easy. Just break it off at a Y in the skeleton. The coral won't feel a thing and all that's needed is slight, even pressure.

I've been thinking of setting up a ten here in my room at the firehouse but I am not sure I can trust the guys. I had visions of them replacing my top off water jug with ammonia or something. But man, it would be awesome to have a tank right here!

[ThingsReef]

Hacksaw works great for the skeleton of the frogspawn. Much less guesswork. Cut about 1" below your current healthy head of the coral and It'll be all good. And I do literally mean hacksaw.

As for the leathers, most I just pinch between a couple rocks and they work fine. It's just the Devil's Hand I have problems with.

As for the Colt Here's my "canned" post for Colts

Colts are one of the harder ones to get to attach in my experience. I now use an old piece of dead coral from my fish only days that I used for decoration. I snap a Y shaped piece off and pin the frag under it against the sand. You may want to put a couple pieces of rock around the area to catch it in case it slides out from the coral piece. It usually attaches in a couple weeks. Good luck!

[ThingsReef]

Bruce,
If your scared wait for a frag class at one of our meetings (which I'll be glad to hold) and I'll hook you up and benefit the rest of the club!

[peege]

Most leathers I don't usually have a problem with. Colts however just seemed to always work themselves out of whatever means I used to secure them. Now I cut them and place them in a small section of pvc sitting on the sand with rubble in the bottom of it. I just put the colt in there and wait for it to attach.

[ThingsReef]

I think a small tank like a 10 or 7, with moderate water flow, set up and healthy with several pieces of "rubble" and pieces of dead decorative coral would work great. You could just drop frags of colt coral in it and they would attach in a week or two.

[peege]

Yeah but it's good to have the frag in a tank with the same conditions so it's less stressful. Cutting it off it's mother is havoc enough. I try to keep frags near the mother so I can at least think I've mimiced the conditions it was used to.

[ThingsReef]

Good point...My 90 has alot of flow and it's too full to make a space but maybe I should find a space as that was the fastest one to attach (about 4 or 5 days). The other ones have taken longer in other tanks.

[minh_han]

Bruce, I saw your web site and enjoyed all the pictures. That frogspawn definitely looked quite large. Let us know how the fragging goes.

Bill, how is your zooanthid that you got at the last meeting. I understand you are quite a zooanthid enthusiast. What colors do you have?

[minh_han]

By the way, anyone have an idea of what I should do with my mantis shrimp I caught a few days ago? It's living in a little jar with a piece of live rock right now. I change the water every day, but I'm not sure what to feed it. I tried a piece of frozen fish but it struck at my stick more than the fish. And I have a dead snail in there as well, but it's not eating it and I think I'm going to take the snail out. Put it back in the main tank probably. I would put it in the sump, but there's only the skimmer (that doesn't yet work), heater and pipes. No rock or sand. It's only a 20 G and seems cramped with all the equipment already even before I put anything else into it.

[ThingsReef]

I don't have too many colors, brown with green edges, marroon (from the meeting and they are already growing), black, brown, orange, and I think that's about it. I like Zoo's 'cause they propagate well.

From what I've read give the Mantis Shrimp away or keep him in his own tank! Good luck.

[Mickey]

Minh ... There are people on this board that love mantis shrimp. Add a post to the Mantis Shrimp forum that you have one and I bet you'll get someone to take it off your hands.

Mickey

[minh_han]

A while ago, you cut your anemone in half to try to propagate it. I wanted to know the results and update on your experiment. ANy word on what the two anemones look like now?

[dburr]

Mihn, Is that a peacock mantis? I've never seen one, just wondering.

You can get a colt corel to stay by sticking it with a tooth pick and use rubber bands on the ends to keep it on the rock.