Help growing baby corals

S

Shilpan

Member
Hey guys! Softie tank, no dosing (parameters 6.7-7.2dKh, Ca410-400, Mg 1320).

So all of a sudden for some reason many of my soft corals started spawning. So the mushrooms are fine because they grow on the rock. But the Kenya tree coral offspring and the green acordia Yuma coral offspring fall onto then sand. These go missing after a few days as my sand sifter buries them under the sand and they die.

So how do I go about this? I wanted to glue them onto some live rock rubble I have.

1) can I use superglue?
2) how big do the corals need to be before I move them? They're like 0.5-1cm diameter at the moment.
3) what's the process?

Thank you
 
2quills

2quills

Well-Known Member
I've never tried fragging softies so I won't be much help but I hear they can be a pain since the normal techniques for hard corals don't work on them

The slime coat on softies makes them tricky to glue and usually doesn't stick. Most folks use different methods of holding the frag to whatever they want to attach it too until it attaches itself to a rock or frag plug.

I've heard sticking mushrooms to a rock and then wrapping it with bridal veil or something similar so it wont blow away works. Could maybe try the same with the Kenya tree.
 
beth

beth

Administrator
Staff member
You can use a bit of rubble rock (small pieces of LR) and place the rock in a dedicated plastic container with 3" or so between rocks and the top of the container. Submerge the container with the rocks into your tank locating it where it can get decent but not intense lighting. Now add your softies. Likely the softies will be ok as long as they are not getting any direct currents within that container and they will attach on their own. However, to be safe, you can top off your plastic container with a loose mesh, which should not touch the softies.

Hobbyists do use frag epoxy or even superglue, but with soft corals, that can be problematic since you have to actually glue the animal.
 
2quills

2quills

Well-Known Member
beth said:
You can use a bit of rubble rock (small pieces of LR) and place the rock in a dedicated plastic container with 3" or so between rocks and the top of the container. Submerge the container with the rocks into your tank locating it where it can get decent but not intense lighting. Now add your softies. Likely the softies will be ok as long as they are not getting any direct currents within that container and they will attach on their own. However, to be safe, you can top off your plastic container with a loose mesh, which should not touch the softies.

Hobbyists do use frag epoxy or even superglue, but with soft corals, that can be problematic since you have to actually glue the animal.
Click to expand...
That's a good idea. Now that I think about it I believe my lfs does something very similar in their softy tank. They have plastic baskets of rock/rubble that they toss loose pieces into. I guess hoping that they'll attach themselves to something.
 
S

Shilpan

Member
Thank you guys that's good advice! I'm gonna try that with all these mushroom frags sitting on my sand, thank you
 
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