World's Smallest Successful Frag?

[Dana Riddle]

I purchased a Montipora frag about a week ago for the lab's tank. It was snapped off the parent colony for me, and when I arrived home I glued it to a plug. There was a tiny (1mm x 1mm) piece of the coral hanging on by tissue and I removed it before gluing. Not wanting to toss the tiny bit, I thought what the heck I'll glue it down too (thinking there wasn't a chance that it would make it.) Now, a week later, it has sprouted 4 polyps and is about 1mm x 2mm. Does anyone have a story of a smaller frag surviving? Pictures, or it didn't happen.

 

[Crabs McJones]

I purchased a Montipora frag about a week ago for the lab's tank. It was snapped off the parent colony for me, and when I arrived home I glued it to a plug. There was a tiny (1mm x 1mm) piece of the coral hanging on by tissue and I removed it before gluing. Not wanting to toss the tiny bit, I thought what the heck I'll glue it down too (thinking there wasn't a chance that it would make it.) Now, a week later, it has sprouted 4 polyps and is about 1mm x 2mm. Does anyone have a story of a smaller frag surviving? Pictures, or it didn't happen.

I have a reverse superman montipora that a friend wanted for his tank, so I chipped off a tiny piece, it couldn't be no bigger than a pencil eraser, now it's completely covered the plug and is entrusting over his rockwork. It didnt happen though as I don't have any pictures of it. Just wanted to share

 

[tdileo]

I don’t have any pictures but I have heard about people having acros grow back from a single corallite. I have a monti cap in my tank that bleached out and died completely and there is only a spot less than 1mm with color left. I don’t have a fancy camera so don’t think a picture will come out but I can try.

 

[Bubs2]

I had a bluebetry fields acro that snapped off a tiny piece of polyp from in the cup when i bought it, the piece was a smaller than a grain of rice, i glued it down and like 7 months later sold it for 50 dollars

 

[CalhounM]

This pocilipora hitchhiked on a acan frag I bought. Had to remove the acan off the plug after 5 months. The pocilipora grew into a small colony and begun stinging the acan
.

 

[Newb73]

This little guy grew from a tiny piece that fell in a hole on a rock.

 

[JaimeAdams]

Coral Maternity - Making a coral frag from a single poly


It's acro frags from single coralites.

 

[Dana Riddle]

Coral Maternity - Making a coral frag from a single poly


It's acro frags from single coralites.

Interesting! The frags in the videos are quite a bit larger than the Monti frag I began with. Thanks for sharing!

 

[madweazl]

This one was literally dead, no visible tissue left at all (obviously there was something) that I could see. Being lazy, I left the dead skeleton and low and behold, it had come back and re-encrusted from near the top (right branch), downward, and then started to spread out rapidly (considerably larger now).

 

[alten78]

I had the single polyp tip of a pink lemonade break off and for fun I glued down to see if it would survive. It took some time but encrusted quite a bit before it finally started to branch...then my frogspawn fell onto it killing the vast majority just recently. Hopefully it bounces back again so if it does I am definitely holding onto it if only for some sort of cheesy inspiration lol.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Coral Maternity - Making a coral frag from a single poly


It's acro frags from single coralites.

Cool video!

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Dana very cool and can't wait to see what becomes of it! It's VERY hard for me to throw anything away.

 

[Steve Ruddy]

Nice job!!! You have me beat, I may have done a few 2 x that big.

 

[Dana Riddle]

Nice job!!! You have me beat, I may have done a few 2 x that big.

That's a complement, coming from you Steve!

 

[Salty1962]

Here is a sliver I got from ReefPets as a challenge, it's about 5x as large know and almost fully encrusted. I'll have to get an updated pic later.

 

[Peanut]

I have experimented with trying to see how small of a piece I can start with to grow something out. The answer is VERY. In some cases you can start with something about the size of the tip of a pencil without a problem.

 

[Dana Riddle]

When I was running a commercial coral farm (Aquatic Wildlife in Cleveland, TN) back in the late 90's, I tried to make frags 1/4" or larger since I found the survival rates were less when made smaller. I think flow made the difference in this case.

 

[Solace87]

It's sad, but at least where I live you would get laughed at calling that a small frag, at a swap. Just snapped a crummy cell phone picture of this monti, and this is after about 2 weeks, it was noticeably smaller at purchase.

 

[Reeferguy365]

This is the smallest frag I've ever taken it's 1/8th of a inch tall I took it as a joke at first so I could say I have 2 Walt Disney frags lol still alive and started to grow a little

 

[csb123]

I recommend we scuttle this thread...so coral vendors don’t get any ideas. I find the whole “1 inch Frag” thing so irritating.