I think I am going to attempt grafting...

[Dilan Patel]

So it has come to a point that all my encrusting and plating montis are getting large and frags would need to be made soon. So I think now is a perfect time to try and graft something. I am interested on what the community would like for me to attempt. So i am giving you a chance to see what I have and to potentially see a cool looking graph. may as well try three montiporas... For now I will only try one graft but will document it on this page. So here are the color/type options.

Plating:
Red monti
Green Monti
Blue polyp Monti
Purple Monti
Seasons greeting monti

Encrusting:
Rainbow monti
Sunset monti
UW sunset rainbow monti
Tequilla monti
Superman Monti
Mystic Sunset Monti
Pink sand dollar monti
Green polyp green base monti

I think i want to try the plating first and allow for my encrusters to grow out a little more but Want to hear your suggestions.

I actually am currently have two 4in pieces of the blue polyp and seasons greeting together in an attemot to graft them a while ago but I have no idea if it worked yet they just now started touching eachother.

 

[Fishhands]

I think a superman and mystic would be cool since the are opposites. Haven't really seen any grafted corals grown out. Does one usually take over or is there a nice balance?

 

[Dsnakes]

This sounds like a fun project. I'll be following along to see how it goes! I don't think I've seen an encrusting graft. Just the common red/green. A three way graft would be neat.

 

[gar732]

I’ve seen what you are trying to do atemped before but it didn't result in a true graft, just two coral growing into each, still looked cool but not the same. Here are a couple pics I found while trying to search for the thread, no luck finding the actual thread though.

Here is how it started out

And the result.

I’ve seen grafts happen naturally in a tank before, my buddy had a starburst cap that grafted naturally in his tank and I have a seasons greetings cap that is grafted with purple, unfortunately it’s only in the center and hasn’t continued randomly throughout like other grafted caps.

Not to say you won’t be successful, you might end up providing the perfect situation for a graft to happen. Just food for thought. When pairing corals I’d select ones with similar growth rates so that one doesn’t overtake the other.

 

[tnyr5]

If you cut out the part with the purple graft and let it grow, you can encourage it along.

 

[Dilan Patel]

I guess it doesn't hurt to try right? if it doesn't completely graft thats ok. Its a neat little experiment to see if it works or not.

 

[instareefer]

I'm interested to see how this will progress. I have many montipora and have witnessed lots of competition between the different types. I would like to see what combinations cozy up nice with each other.

 

[Flippers4pups]

I tried this with a red and green Monti and the green just grew over the red. I might try again soon.

 

[Dilan Patel]

I think the green grows faster than red. i think I am going to try a red and purple or something like that. I will be making the frags this week hopefully today and will post pics of the combinations.

 

[tdileo]

I would love to see a red and purple or green and purple.

 

[Dilan Patel]

So I was able to cut the frags just right now and get pictures. These frags are SMALL for a reason. I will tell when I post the pics up. For now lay your guess of what I did. I did two montis and an encrusting frag

 

[Dilan Patel]

Ended up doing a purple cap and a red cap. A green cap with a seasons greeting cap and a mystic sunset and a rainbow encrusting monti. 01/08/18 is the official start of this grafting experiment. I wanted to do small frags to give the corals time to heal and mature a little in order to be able to at least merge with one another.

 

[James Johnson]

You will end up with some cool combo monti rocks but that is not the same as a grafted coral, in a true grafted coral you can take a solid color piece of either type and as it grows out you will end up with both grafted colors eventually

 

[29bonsaireef]

Agreed, Im pretty sure for a true graft to work you need to glue two clean cut edges together. My red and green caps have been scrolling together for a few years and never morphed or created a graft. If you glue two injured sides together, they will heal together and thats how a graft is formed. Gluing two separate pieces close together will likely just end up two separate montis growing around each other.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Can't wait to see these!

 

[Dilan Patel]

I did not know that they had to be touching...Will move them soon then as well as I had to make a new frag of my green plate due to it dying for some odd reason.

 

[Dilan Patel]

So looking at your suggestions. I decided to cut new edges on the montis and place them together. Now hopefully this works.

 

[Wisdom.Corals]

Awesome, excited to see this progress! I was thinking of trying this with my appleberry and reef raft when they get big enough to frag

 

[Dilan Patel]

So it has been a week since my last update. not much has changed in terms of the corals. I believe they are healing. i am going to start feeding them some reef roids. Will post pics later today

 

[estebanb450]

This this thread still alive?