Can you frag a Ricordea?

rossim

rossim

Member
Instead of starting a new thread, I'll just bump this old post. I'm interested in the methods as well.
 
speg

speg

Active Member
I got a green ricordea from this website a while back... it came on a very small piece of rubble which I scrapped off of it with my finger nail leaving only the mushroom in whole. I then took a rubber band and placed it around a rock where I desired the mushroom to be.. I placed the mushroom under the rubberband.. The rubber band was tight around the mushroom.. but I figured it should be tight because mushrooms tend to get slimy when you touch them and they easily fall out of place. Also at night the mushrooms shrink quite a bit.. so I didnt wanna risk the mushroom floating away.
To my surprise the rubberband had cut completely through the mushroom and the smallish chunk that was cut ended up floating just a couple inches down the rock to a small crevice. Right now I have two ricordea mushrooms on the rock, both completely whole mushrooms and you would never have known that a piece was cut from the other.
So... to frag them all you'd do is take a razor and cut through them completely and boom... two shrooms.
 
M

minitruck

Guest
I have heard that you should get a part of the mouth on each frag but that its not too important. I frag my mushrooms and I have quite a big assortment of them right now. It seems that if you cut them in half they grow pretty quick and stay the size they were before you cut them instead of shrinking. When I frag mine they grow back to full circles within a week. To me thats really fast.
Have fun and cut it up man!
 
chipmaker

chipmaker

Active Member
Yes its possible. I happened on a free paper one day put out by Aquarium Systems, called the SeaScope...Its usually available at dealers free of charge that handle Aquarium Systems merchandise. It has an excellent article and step by step process of fragging a ricordea. It was recomended to slice it in half.....Bolder folks may go for more pieces. It mentions its also important to make sure yu get equal portions of the foot as well as the mouth. The individual suggests placing the ric on a "plastic" cutting board and not wood, since no bacteria is harbored in plastic s there is in wood, and using a sharp clean scissors. The internal mantles are supposedly somewhat tougher than a typical shrooms mantle is. The ric seems to have much more internal guts than a shroom has as well, and it gets expelled out after being cut. It was also suggested that since rics slime up a lot more than a shroom does, and the slime was mainly concentrated at the cut portion , that this cut portion be rised a few times a day with a pipette or syringe to help reduce accumulation of any harmfull bacteria. Also suggested was the use of a typical hang on breeder cage like those used for livebears in the FW world. The individual placed the frags in small plastic solo cups on just enough crushed coral substrate to sink the solo cup, and then placed these solo cups in the breeder cage in his main tank. It took around two full months until the rics fully healed, and at this time he once again cut those frags again to propagate more. Check it out at www thesea dot org. I have not checked out the website that was mentioned but did read the article, so I do not know exactly what info that website offers. I am planning on fragging 3 of them this weekend myself......
 
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