Will trimming an encrusted frag encourage additional growth?

[Sierra_Bravo]

Pay no attention to the color in the pic - my lights are low and I over-saturated it. I just wanted a visual to go with my question.

The PC Rainbow below was a single stick frag and has encrusted nicely to the rock. There are some beginning signs of elongation in some of the corallites surrounding the base. If I clip and frag the single branch, does it generally result in multiple branches forming more rapidly?

 

[dbl]

Sorry I don't have an answer for you, but I'm curious what others have to say about the question.

 

[bubbaque]

I say no. When I clip a coral, multiple branches do not grow out of it. It usually heals and just another branch takes its place.

Sometimes cutting a coral that hasn't grown forever may get it growing again though.

 

[Phelipe's Ocean]

I say leave it, once it gets slightly larger basal shoots will start to come out from the encrusted portion and look something like this:

 

[amnesiac]

I say leave it, once it gets slightly larger basal shoots will start to come out from the encrusted portion and look something like this:

Me likey

 

[BoomCorals]

I would just leave it. It’s going to start new branches soon!

 

[Sierra_Bravo]

I would just leave it. It’s going to start new branches soon!

I say leave it, once it gets slightly larger basal shoots will start to come out from the encrusted portion and look something like this:

I appreciate the advice; I'm actually not talking specifically about this coral or planning on clipping it. I remember reading something, maybe from GARF, about increasing coral branching through breaking branches and I've seen posts on here stating that multiple branches appear when trimming back corals.

None of my corals are big enough for me to have first hand experience.

 

[mpsteve]

I have done this a lot. I buy a Frag put it in my display and when it encrust a lot a cut the original frag off and glue it to a tile to put in my grow out tank. I have noticed in some corals it accelerates growth on the encrusted frags. But in a couple cases meaning 2 in my case the encrusted part healed and then stopped growing

 

[amnesiac]

I appreciate the advice; I'm actually not talking specifically about this coral or planning on clipping it. I remember reading something, maybe from GARF, about increasing coral branching through breaking branches and I've seen posts on here stating that multiple branches appear when trimming back corals.

None of my corals are big enough for me to have first hand experience.

Pretty much all of my acros follow a similar growth pattern. All new growth is from the newly encrusted area as opposed to the "original frag". Very few of my acros actually continue to grow/gain mass from the "original frag" so I have a bunch of mini acro colonies with a tiny frag in the middle (original frag) and tons of new branches surrounding it that grew out from the encrustment. It also had me thinking that if I were to maybe scrape it or snip off a piece of the original frag maybe it would jump start growth there, but I've never had the balls to try it.

 

[mpsteve]

Do it because that’s exactly what happens and it grows from the center because the encrusted part is forced to heal there first and just continues to grow upwards from there

 

[Graffiti Spot]

It depends on the species as to how clipping will affect it. A stag most likley wont grow a bunch of new coralites but a bushy coral may develop quicker if its top is cut. Normally I only cut frags yo get new growth if the coral has been idle for many many months.
But some corals like PC rainbow need to be left alone for a long time before they color up and grow well. So it's always a crapshoot unless you have experience with the same species before, then you can make a guess as to what needs to be done to encourage new growth