Fragging my beloved Acro simplex

[viper_930]

This is one of my favorite corals from Steve Tyree's limited edition list, my grafted A. simplex. I got the first frag that he auctioned off back in November 2005 and just been growing it out ever since. Definitely a slow grower! Almost a year in my tank and it's grown from two small branches into what you see in the pics.
Just some background info on this coral: As you can see in the pics, there's definitely a high contrast between the purple and green pigments. It's believed that a flourescent green Stylophora pistillata brushed up against the purple A. simplex, and some green pigments remained and actually continued to grow. 99+% of the time pigments are transfered the new color eventually dies off.
Pic from 30 minutes ago before fragging:

The green has been growing very well for me, but only at the base, so I just decided to make the branches shorter and mount them around the base to spread the flourescent green pigments onto them.
So this is how the coral turned out after I broke off and remounted a few branches. They're so thin and brittle I accidentally snapped a few frags of the frags just trying to get them glued down.

Well there ya go! All in a good 10 minute's work. Now I just hope it doesn't RTN on me tonight...

 

[viper_930]

Here's a bigger pic of the cool pattern. Hmm, new green apple swirls?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...mplexclose.jpg

 

[efishnsea]

Good luck, wow that thing is AWESOME

. How much did you pay

?????

 

[viper_930]

Thanks!
I got it for 190 shipped.

 

[efishnsea]

How is it doing???????

 

[viper_930]

It's doing great! Thanks for checking in. None of it started to RTN, but the glue killed off a bit of the base of each branch, but that was expected. Some of the tiniest branches are half dead because of that, but they'll grow back.
I was afraid that my snails might decide to plow through it and knock off all the new frags, so I banished them all to the fuge for now.