Guide to Frag Coral
- Oct 26, 2021
- Arianna Rizzi
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All the aquarists who have a marine aquarium would like to have a large tank full of corals. The problem is that if you buy corals, it requires a lot of money and you don’t know if it will survive in your tank, because corals are collected in the Ocean and travel long distances in precarious living conditions, these specimens are dying and damaged before to arrive in your home.
For this reason, many aquarists have found an alternative method to overcome this problem.
This is the coral fragging!
To comprehend this, you must first know that corals have a unique ability to recreate matching clones from any parts of themselves. In fact, in the nature corals have evolved a remarkable range of reproductive strategies to survive in their dynamic environment. Budding—division into clones—and fragmentation are examples of asexual reproduction. Fragmentation occurs naturally when coral pieces are broken off a colony as a result of wave action, storms or animal activities. Under favorable conditions, these fragments can attach and develop into new colonies.
Thanks to this ability of coral reproduction, we are able to multiply our corals in our tank using the fragging technique, which is quite similar to shaping bushes or cutting down branches to acquire expected figures. It not only allows you to prevent the corals from taking each other’s colonies but also breed new ones to glorify your aquarium.
In simple words, coral fragging refers to the cutting, snapping, or slicing corals and then mount the frag on rocks or any materials to reproduce new one coral.
Stages to fragging Corals
Generally, there are four stages to coral fragging:
- Conditioning
- Preparation
- Creating the frag
- Attachment
Conditioning
Is the most important factor in determining in your success or failure in coral fragging. Because healthy corals recover better from fragging than damaged or sick corals do. Before to frag the coral, you ensure that the coral is healthy. This helps you check and meet the animal’s nutritional and environmental needs before you attempt to cut into pieces or fragments.
Cutting up your corals injures your corals, and injured corals, just like any other injured animal, have to fight off infection and heal after the injury, or they won’t pull through.
What you can do, as a hobbyist, to minimize the risks from injury is provide the best conditioning for the coral and provide high quality tank water, good water flow and take great care of the corals before, during and after fragging.
First of all, create an environment where your corals will flourish, then test the water regularly, give your coral the right amount and proper quality light and feed it and perform routine maintenance on the tank, like water changes and cleaning out pumps, to keep the aquarium pristine.
Preparation
This stage involves deciding which fragging strategy you want to use, marking the areas to make the cuts on the coral, and preparing your countertop for work.
Take the time to visualize where you plan to make the cuts before you move the coral. The coral will likely look completely different when you remove it from the tank, it is critically important to visualize where you plan to make the cuts before you start.
Creating the frag
Now, it’s time to cut or break off your coral into fragments. This is the step where you actually divide the coral into two or more colonies.
The preferred cutting tool and technique may change slightly from coral species to coral species, but the general themes about cutting tend to hold true regardless of coral type.
You can choose from 5 kinds of cutting techniques available, which are:
- Clipping method – tap the chisel with a hammer to break apart a piece of a rock with the LPS coral.
- Snapping method – best for SPS corals or LPS corals with relatively thin branches. Using bone cutters, squeeze the handle and twist to snap a branch.
- Shearing method – this method works best for soft-bodied Leather Coral species like Finger Coral and Xenia. Use your scissors to cleave off a branch of the coral species.
- Slicing method – simply use sharp razor scalpels and razor blades to slice through the coral.
- Sawing method – used for SPS that have thick branches that won’t snap or break easily.
Tools for cutting
- Razor Blade (Soft Corals such as Mushroom Corals)
- Scalpel ideal tool for fragging Soft Coral colonies.
- Stainless steel scissors Soft Corals colonies
- Wire cutters thinly branched Stony Coral species.
- Bone cutters the perfect tool for cutting any branching Stony Coral
Attachment
Once you make the cut, you typically need to attach that coral frag to something for the coral to grow on because if you just place that piece of coral back into your tank, it would get blown around in the water flow or potentially get covered with sand and/or damaged at the bottom of the tank.
There are different techniques to attach the coral:
- slow creep method,
- plastic container and mesh method,
- glue method,
- impaling method,
- rubber band method, and
- fishing line method
Tools for attaching:
- Cyanoacrylate glue it is the best with the Stony Corals
- Two-part epoxy can help you bond a coral or two pieces of rock together
- Rubber bands
- Tulle/Bridal veil/Plastic mesh
- Plastic toothpicks for Soft Coral species
- Fishing line and a sewing needle
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