Fragging and Attaching Leather Corals

[Connie]

Are you sure it's a sinularia? Mine is way too slimy and I can't even get glue to hold for a few seconds. Kenya trees on the other hand will stick by themselves.

I suppose I could be wrong, I'm no pro by no means, but it does look like the posted pics. Branches drop off and attach to rubble....then I glue the rubble to a frag plug or rock.

 

[mainereefer]

the only problem i have had with the rubberband is it splits the coral
now I sandwich the coral inbetween 2 rocks and rubberband them together

 

[ritter6788]

the only problem i have had with the rubberband is it splits the coral
now I sandwich the coral inbetween 2 rocks and rubberband them together

It doesn't always split the coral. It will if it's too tight though. In the pic of my toadstool where it has 2 heads they grew back together to make one head. One I gave away still has two heads and some of the others didn't split at all, just one head.

This was posted recently on our local forum:

Yellow Polyp Leather....escaped, a elastic band, 2 elastic bands crossed over, a crossed zip tie cage, but not.. the shot glass with a shell in the bottom. Infact it attached quite quickly.... growing slowly, but looking healthy.

The leather came from me but it wasn't attached when I gave it to him. I had several more of the same leather that quickly attached to frag plugs with rubberband but there were 2 or 3 that refused to attach. I guess he got one of the hard headed ones.

I'm going to frag my green sinularia and use the shot glass method just because I've never tried it before and to take pics for this thread.

 

[duncangweller]

what is the tall red coral at the back?

 

[ritter6788]

what is the tall red coral at the back?

The tall one in the back is a toadstool but it's not red. It's white and brown.

 

[duncangweller]

Thanks,

Tank looks great, and thanks for the informative post.

 

[ritter6788]

Here is my attempt at The Shot Glass Method. This is my first attempt at this so I have no idea how well it will work. If it works well I'll go back and edit the original article to include this method also.

This is the coral that I'm attempting to frag, a Green Sinularia.

This is the best match of shot glass I could find for the frag plug size that I was using. (From Joe's Crab Shack of course).

It's almost a perfect fit. The plug did try to turn sideways so I may add a little rubble rock or sand underneath to hold the plug still if needed.

I used a sharp, clean razor to frag a small branch of the coral and just dropped it in. (Actually I used my pocket knife but it's clean and very sharp and razors are recommended so for the the purpose of this article I used a razor).

Added to the frag rack in a shallow tank almost directly under a 150w metal halide. I've had this coral for years so there will be no need to acclimate it to this lighting. This is also the area of best water flow.

My first thoughts on this is that the coral wants to float out of the glass with increased water flow but this tank is not too high flow right now so I think the coral will settle. My other thought was snails, and fish moving the frag too much. I'm sure snails will try to get down in the glass but I'll figure that out later if it's a problem. I just feel like the extra movement of the frag will cause it to take longer to attach.

Now we wait!

 

[ritter6788]

When I got home last night the plug had flipped on it's side and the frag was under the plug.

I fixed that problem by adding a little sand to the bottom to hold the plug still.

This morning I went in before the lights were on to clip a piece of Nori for the Starry Blenny. I thought the fish may mess with the frag but I didn't think they'd sleep in there.

 

[sprinklerdudes]

too cool, when i frag my soft coral i have a small tupperware bowl with some crushed coral in the bottom, i put the small cut pieces of the coral frags in the bowl andd place in the end of the frag tank in the low flow area, in a few weeks when you see them growing etc, you can take them out, they will have attached themselves to some of the small crushed coral rubble and you can then glue that to the frag plug, the trick is to put the super glue on thefrag plug and let it sit a minute, then use a old towel to blot the end of the coral frag slightly dry so the rublle attached to the coral frag will stay attached almost instanly to the frag plug, i have found that if you do it this way very few , 1 out of 50 , accutly come lose, mayby not a perfect way, but it works for me, i have tried rubber bands, i always either get them to loose or to tight, and wind up trying to get the rubber band untangled from the power head in the morning

 

[Dave3112]

Instead of bridal veil I use a cutting off of an onion sack from the grocery store. I rinse it well in RO/DI and cut the size I need then frag my toadstool (only leather I have) and loosely cover the frag with the onion sack then put rubber band the sack in place. Usually takes a week or two to attach. The just take rubber bands and onion sack off and save for use again or throw away.

 

[ritter6788]

Thanks for the tips!

The frag came out of the glass so I'm going to use an onion bag (I have an unlimited supply at work) to cover the glass. The blenny won't stay out of the glass so I need to cover it to keep him out.

 

[ritter6788]

Going to give this a try but seriously by now I could have attached it using a rubber band. I'm going to give this a couple of weeks just for kicks and see if it will attach.

 

[Pkunk35]

lol, I think its hilarious what reefers will use as tools in this hobby. The blenny in the shotglass was too funny...

He's gorgeous btw...didn't realize the blennys would eat sheets of nori.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Has anyone ever used toothpicks to attach leathers? My friend does this all the time with hers. She sticks the toothpicks in the base and glues them to rubble and it works for her.

 

[ritter6788]

..didn't realize the blennys would eat sheets of nori.

Not only will they eat it but try to rip it out of my hand while I'm putting it in there. The clownfish pair and the blue damsel will fight for pieces of it too. That blenny bites my hand when I reach in there and it makes me jump every time.

 

[ritter6788]

I gave up on the shot glass idea, it would take forever for that frag to attach. I think that method is better for mushrooms than branched soft corals.

I rubber banded it to a plug and it attached in less than a week.

 

[philfree]

i have one that dangerously close to a nem, and need to cut the head off. However its attached to a huge rock that i cant remove. Can i cut it in tank with out killing everything??

 

[ritter6788]

i have one that dangerously close to a nem, and need to cut the head off. However its attached to a huge rock that i cant remove. Can i cut it in tank with out killing everything??

I've cut leathers in tank with no issues BUT it's not ideal or really recommended. Run a bunch of fresh carbon afterwards to minimize toxins.

 

[ritter6788]

Since the thread was brought back up here's a shot of some ORA Neon Sinularias I recently cut and attached.

 

[mrjlopez731]

Thanks for all the info on here, this is surely most helpful going forward. I myself have tried the rubber band but not on a plug. I take my frag off the plug and place it on a hole on one of my rocks to where the frag enters the hole just deep enough. If the hole is not big enough I then take a screw driver and make it bigger. To get the frag off the plug, first I let the frag settle a few days in my tank, then I just take it out the tank and hit the side of the frag with a screw driver and a hammer and it comes right off. I place the rubber band over the frag in the hole and let it lock into place. In a few days it stuck on and I cut off the rubber band. To be honest I'm not much of a fan when it comes to the plug sticking out the rock like that, so I get rid of it. For me it seems to lock into place much faster then the plug. If it's a favor for a friend and we are sharing frags. I ask for a rock from his tank and just do it for them and vice versa for me also.