Frag a bubble?

ajilon

Member
I've heard this is hard to do. What would be the procedure? I have a bubble in a 75 gallon that's spanning more than 16". He's getting too big to stay in there now.
 

reefkprz

Active Member
they are tough but not impossible.
your going to need a wet tile saw filled with new marine water. then you make your cut and let the coral slime up in a bucket of new marine water for about one half to one hour, with a heater to maintain temperature and a small powerhead pointed upwards to aerate and wash away the slime. then you return the fags to the tank as close to the original position as possible to avoid any drastic changes. dont attempt it if your water quality isn't near perfect. chances of secondary infections are pretty high on a bubble coral. its not a good Idea to use dry saw (like roto zips or dremels on bubble corals though it has been done) dry saws tend to heat up the coral too much when cutting.
dont skip the bucket step, believe it or not it can play a serious role in survival rate
 

reefkprz

Active Member
yeah. sometimes they recover from a secondary infection after a lot of recession, but usually the whole creature dies. bubbles are pretty sensitive to fragging. if its your fist time fragging I reccomend practicing on some other things first just to get comfortable with the procedures.
 

grabbitt

Active Member
I wanted to do this with my bubble because it was enormous but I chickened out, lol. Sold it to the LFS. If you do try it, best of luck!
ReefkprZ, speaking of dremels.. Did you ever get around to making any fragging videos using one? I would be very interested to see them
 

sharkbait9

Active Member
This is the way I did my big bubble coral with success and no secondary infection risk.
Go to HD and get plastic wedges that can be broken to fit the space. Cut the skeleton of the bubble from the middle up (leave a nice size on the bottom like 1 to 2inch) on both sides going up to the edges of the flesh but don't go all the way around the flesh. You want to have your cuts go straight thru the skeleton. Place the wedges into the cuts and every couple of days push the wedges evenly deeper into the cuts. By doing this you are making the coral stretch its flesh and the coral will complete the split themselves over a two week period or so. Once the bubble coral completes the split, then go and cut the bottom section that you did not cut and if need be cut the top of the coral where the flesh split on its own.
Bubble coral are a hard coral to just go and cut (from what I was told) and need to be fragged at a very slow pace.
Not trying to step on your toes reef, just throwing out the way I did mine.
YOU also want the bucket of water to wash away the slim and paste you will make as your cutting.
 

reefkprz

Active Member
Originally Posted by sharkbait9
http:///forum/post/2617958
Not trying to step on your toes reef, just throwing out the way I did mine.
YOU also want the bucket of water to wash away the slim and paste you will make as your cutting.
hey, no toes stepped on here, there are definatly more than one way to frag many corals, I'm always up for hearing other ways to do it. especially if its lower impact on the coral.
 

grabbitt

Active Member
Originally Posted by reefkprZ
http:///forum/post/2618092
when you see the white spray coming off the dremel I got a face full of cut spray. thank goodnes for saftey glasses
For some reason, I can't get photobucket to work for me when it comes to videos... I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but it's been goin on for about four months now

Do you have it on any other hosting sites? youtube and google both still work fine for me.
And good call on the glasses. I recently ruined a pair of oakleys for paranoid purposes because I couldn't find my goggles. A chunk of rock from my tubs blue colony flew out and left a nice scratch right in front of the left eye.. I lost those lenses, but at least I kept my eye
 

angler man

Member

Originally Posted by reefkprZ
http:///forum/post/2616811
they are tough but not impossible.
your going to need a wet tile saw filled with new marine water. then you make your cut and let the coral slime up in a bucket of new marine water for about one half to one hour, with a heater to maintain temperature and a small powerhead pointed upwards to aerate and wash away the slime. then you return the fags to the tank as close to the original position as possible to avoid any drastic changes. dont attempt it if your water quality is near perfect.
chances of secondary infections are pretty high on a bubble coral. its not a good Idea to use dry saw (like roto zips or dremels on bubble corals though it has been done) dry saws tend to heat up the coral too much when cutting.
dont skip the bucket step, believe it or not it can play a serious role in survival rate

I'm confused about the statement above. Me want to understand.
 

reefkprz

Active Member
Originally Posted by Angler man
http:///forum/post/2618524
I'm confused about the statement above. Me want to understand.
its a typo it should say "dont attempt if your water quality ISN'T near perfect."
thanks for pointing that out hopefully it'll save some one later on.
 

reefkprz

Active Member
Originally Posted by GRabbitt
http:///forum/post/2618347
Do you have it on any other hosting sites? youtube and google both still work fine for me.
I dont have it on any other sites, I'm not patient enough to upload them multiple times. Maybe, watch it at a friends?

let me know if you cant and I'll upload some of the vids onto youtube or something.
 
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