HUGE encrusting frag project

maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
I have a collection of dead coral heads that I plan on encrusting with various corals. This is going to be a long term project and I figure that it may take a year or two for this first coral to totally encrust. The base coral is about 14" x 10" and I'll be using a neon green Hydnophora thats about 6" and I think I can bust it up into maybe a hundred small frags and then glue them all over the coral head base. I'll start the actuall fragging tomorrow and post pics.

 
maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
The key to a project like this is to be oranized and have everything layout and to have a mental image of what you want to accomplish. Total time for having the coral out of the water, cutting and fragging was about 9 minutes. There is about 50 small frags from .25" - .50".
1st Step was to lay all the tools, bowls and glue out, get organized
2nd Step. Inspect the coral and decide where to start cutting
3rd Step. Cut as fast and neat as possible, trying to keep the small pieces usable.
4th Step. Weed out all the bad frags and organize the usable ones.
5th Step. Start glueing!
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This original colony of hydro, was created the same way as above. It started out as a dead coral head with a small 1/2" colony glue to the center of it which encrusted the entire piece with about 6 months.
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Once I can get this huge coral encrusted, it'll be amazing looking and worth a small fortune





 
maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
Here are the next projects, not sure what I'm going to put on each coral, but I think I want to use just about every color of zoo that I have for this one and then stand it strait up in the tank, it'll look very impressive as the coral is about 14" tall and I can really see it covered in zoo's
 
maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
I'm pretty sure that I'm going to take the chance and frag this Purple Rain Monti onto this one. This monti growns really fast and the colors are intense, neon purple with red polyps. The photo of the monti looks horrid, colors are much more vibrant.

 
maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
And now we have the 2nd to the largest, used the credit card to show scale.
I have no idea what I'm going to do with this one, but leaning towards a paly/zoo mix.. This thing is huge and would take forever with a sps. I also have another coral thats about twice this size.
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
Your completely insane, I LOVE IT!
Makes my show rock I have been working on for 6 months look like dog spittle.
 
tx reef

tx reef

Active Member
Great idea!

I am going to do that with my superman and pokerstar montiporas once I have the new setup going!
 
maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
Many, many years ago before most of even knew about LR and filtration I had a 240g with fish only, it was a pretty trick system that used a reverse flow, undergravel (crushed coral) filter bed. The CC sat ontop of egg crate that was cover in netting and water was pushed UP thru the CC and returned thru a center mounted drain that fed into micron filters, UV and a host of other lifegard systems. Tank was a no brainer and never had a problem for 5 years and then I sold it. But, the tank was totally filled with dead, decorative coral that I still own. I spent a fortune on the coral, looks like I've now found a use for other than setting around and looking pretty.
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Looks like I've already got some polyp extensions on the hydro's, interesting to find out how long before the encrusting will be visible..
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The tank these are in has dKH of 9 and CA is about 430, with 2x250mh, very high flow, so I should see some decent growth.
 
maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
Originally Posted by reefkprZ
Your completely insane, I LOVE IT!
Makes my show rock I have been working on for 6 months look like dog spittle.
LOL....
 
maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
I'll have to post pics of all my Abalone "gardens", couple of months ago I came across some huge abalone shells that were "natural" or rather unpolished. Ended up glueing a few shreds of some GSP to a couple of them and now they are totally covered, did a few in zoo's that are also now covered, did mostly soft stuff. But now I'm going to use the rest of the shells to created little "gardens" I'm going to try some xenia, zoo's, gsp and yellow polyps to one shell, maybe even a mushroom
 
wangotango

wangotango

Active Member
that was a neat idea. its gonna take a while but its going to be sweet when its done. keep us posted.
-Justin
 
maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
Originally Posted by mie
just curious but what will one of those be worth when all done :thinking:
Depends on which one, on average a 5-6" green hydno will retail for $60-80. But when you start to get into show size pieces like the ones above the price can skyrocket if you have the right client base.
Figure at a minimum of a couple hundred and several thousand for the huge zoo project, thats if it were to totally encrust with good color morphs.
 
chilwil84

chilwil84

Active Member
sweet project, love the avatar must be a boxer thing with being on the pillows mine is either curled in front of the fire or on a bed with its head on the pillow
 
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