Fragging a hammer?

[siskiou]

What kind of tools do you use to safely frag a hammer coral?

[superjohnny]

When I bought my frogspawn from Waves he used a pair of what looked like medical type clippers. The type an electrician would use... not a barber. He clipped 2 heads a couple of inches below where the head of the coral was and said the white stuff is dead so it's fine. It's been in my tank thriving ever since.

[dsoz]

depends on if it is a ridge type hammer, or a branching hammer. Branching hammer like superjohnny said. If it is all in one ridge, it will take a lot more work. I once read a thread on how to do it, but I don't remember where it was. I just google searched coral fragging (or maybe propagation) and saw something.

 

Basically it said to use a dremmel to cut most of the way through the skeleton, then break the skeleton (GENTLY!!!) and slowly, over the course of a couple of weeks, separate the two broken pieces so the flesh has a chance to split on it's own.

 

I don't have one of these type of hammers, so I have never tried this method.

 

dsoz

[Jay]

Yep....what he said. If its a branching type hammer a good pair of side cutters works well. I also use my dremmel on branching corals that are to thick to cut with side cutters. Go to Lowes and buy a disk for your dremmel. I use the discs that are labeled for cutting plastic.

 

Jay

[siskiou]

It's a branching hammer.

 

So, does a wire clipper sound like the right thing to use?

Or does anyone in Eugene have a bone cutter I could borrow?

[SeanF]

Dremels work fine for either type and there is no need to cut most of the way through the skeleton and let them seperate by themselves. As long as the coral is healthy you can just take that dremel and cut right through the thing flesh and all. The coral will usually be fully open and happy again within an hour of fragging. With the branching Euphyllias you can even cut through the heads and they will live.