Need Advice On Trimming A Colt Coral

[Steve 926]

Hello To All

I would like to trim a Large colt coral down some, It's starting to take over & I would like to reduce it's size.

Any advice on how to controll the mucus, and how much of the coral can be removed at one time by cutting it.

Has any one tried using a small cable tie, to slowley remove portions of the coral over time instead of cutting it.

As Always
Thanks For A Reply.

Steve 926

[lancer99]

I have NO experience in doing this, but this is what I've read:

Take fairly large cuttings, small ones are likely to die off quickly.

Wash the cuttings in saltwater, as you would do for any other soft coral cutting.

The cuttings are probably most easily attached in a cup with crushed coral or live rock rubble.

I'm not sure about using a cable tie...they'd almost certainly decide to detach when you weren't looking

HTH,
-R

[orb]

i tried the zip tie method a couple times. it worked well, just took a lot of time. it took around a week to pinch off a piece about 2 inches thick. when the pieces seperated, sometimes the zip tie would be connected to the frag, the other time the tie was connected to the colony-and the frag was just floating around the tank. it's worth a shot though.

i didn't notice any negative effects when just cutting them, though. i had a growout part of my sump where i just layed the frags onto rock rubble, and they eventually took hold. there was a lot of mucus-but i just cut them in my tank-55 gal at the time, and then they went right into the sump. didn't have any problems.
the next day i did a large water change, and ran carbon for a week or so. good luck!!!!

[derricksoldit]

Be carefull. The first time I trimmed my colt the mucus killed off my xenia. I would recommend trimming it in a bucket. leave it in the bucket for a half hour and then put it back in the tank. I have had the same colt for years. Chekc out my gallery.

[dover101]

I just snipped a 3"-4" branch off of mine because it was getting to close to another coral. I used sharp scissors and let it drop to substrate,It eventually attached to small rocks, I noticed no ill effects to colt or its neighbors.

[John Zillmer]

orb's advice regarding carbon and a w/c is right on -- colts can be pretty toxic when cut. I finally got sick of losing other corals to allelopathic aggression, and set up a seperate frag system.

Lancer99's comment about large cuttings doing better is consistent with my experience, too.