Fragging Scolymia

mrnewberry · Jan 6, 2014

On Dec. 17th I fragged a scoly. I have been documenting it on my local reefers forum, but I figured you guys might want to see it as well. I will do a little copy and pasting/editing and put up a few posts.

Before:

Here is the aftermath following the fragging of my Siamese twin Scoly:

mrnewberry · Jan 6, 2014

Here is a photo from Dec. 20th showing the flesh of the scoly trying to "climb over" the spikes of the skeleton to cover up the wound.

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mrnewberry · Jan 6, 2014

Here are the frags on Dec. 20th:

mrnewberry · Jan 6, 2014

Here is how the main scoly looked on Dec. 23rd. You can see that the flesh has pretty much climbed over the skeleton to cover up where it was cut.

Also, I had just glued the frags down.

mrnewberry · Jan 6, 2014

And here is an update from today:

I turned the big Scoly around the other way now that it appears to have healed up.

Here are the frags. You can see that it now has flesh around the mouth and is starting to make new flesh at the cut areas.

On two of the frags they had little bits on an end where a tiny bit of skeleton and flesh almost looked like they were going to try and pull away. On the internet about the only video you can find is of a frag that has a piece that has pulled free. I figured I would nip it in the bud and just frag off the tiny piece so it can just heal up and move on. I did it on one of the frags a week or so ago and it has already healed up where I removed it and is probably the best looking frag. And on the other I just did the cutting about a half an hour ago.

Before:

After:

The first tiny frag seems to be doing fine. I figure if it works out it will probably be kind of like the baby scolys people sometimes get growing out of a skeleton after their Scoly dies.

ritter6788 · Jan 6, 2014

Very cool. Following.

Bruce AZ · Jan 6, 2014

good job , keep us updated

Adam10045 · Jan 6, 2014

I'm going to try this one day when I get a saw.

aandfsoccr04 · Jan 6, 2014

Very neat. Following your progress. I'd be way too scared to frag my scoly.

mrnewberry · Jan 6, 2014

If you are curious as to how I fragged it then the following video may interest you. I used a bandsaw. I believe it was an inland that our local club in2deep borrowed, from Seafari if I remember correctly, so that we could frag acans at our last club meeting. After the meeting I gathered up all the nerve I could and cut the scoly in half trying to follow the natural transition between the two halves of the siamese twins. (Which is what you will see in the video.) I then thinned out the stony under structure and cut it into three pieces. I had originally intended to cut it into quarters, but the side I had just cut seemed pretty narrow. So, I did three pieces instead.

Here is the video. Thanks to our former club president Ronnie for taking the time to film and post it up on the web.

Scoly fragging on Vimeo

mrnewberry · Jan 7, 2014

A quick note on the tiny frags. They are really small. They came from the back side where the two were separated. The smaller twin was growing kind of on the side of the other. So, on the side where they were separated the Scoly/skeleton was really thin. Which is why I think the tiny parts broke and wanted to pull away. I do not think it would have been as likely on normal full sized Scoly cut with a bandsaw. But, it has provided me with an extra experiment.

mrnewberry · Jan 8, 2014

This one just ate a brine shrimp.

Duffam3434 · Jan 8, 2014

That's Awsome! I'm gonna check out your vid to watch the process.

brandon85 · Jan 8, 2014

very nice, Time to frag the masters now:tongue: lol

revhtree · Jan 8, 2014

Cool! Following!

Josm315 · Jan 8, 2014

It's great that you're sharing this on reef2reef. It's been really enjoyable observing on the local forums and more people need to know.

kwolfskill · Jan 8, 2014

Wow, that is very cool, thanks for sharing! Watching the video of you cutting it on the bandsaw, I'm just cringing. That took more guts than I probably have at this point.