Fragging a very large leather

[labnjab]

Its time to trim back our very large toadstool leather a few inches before it starts to shadow other coral. Its probably 12-14 inches across when fully open. What is the safest way to frag it in the tank since its too large to remove? The section is probably going to be 1/2 inch to an inch wide and probably 1/4 to 1/3 the circumference long. I'm thinking a new razor blade is the best way to cut it. Should I do it just before a water change and with a fresh batch of carbon running. My biggest concern preventing any chemical problems that may harm our sps. Thank you for any help.

[coachfraley]

I think you have the right idea. Fresh carbon and a WC should prevent any problems. I have never heard of leathers being very toxic.

Something like zoas/palys would be another story. I have heard a zoa "juice" nuking entire tanks.

[labnjab]

Thank you Coach. This leather has already proven to be toxic. A day our 2 after adding it to the tank we lost all but 1 branch of a decent sized green birdsnest colony and 1/3 of a pocilipora colony to RTN. After that we started running GAC for the 1st time ever

[kaybee]

Many leather corals are in the highly-toxic category.

[CoralFragger]

You really don't have to worry about the "Toxins". The "Toxins" are constantly being over exaggerated. If you have a skimmer on the tank you're right as rain. If not do a 10% water change if you're worried, really it's no big deal. If SPS are dieing in your tank it isn't the soft corals causing it. I've kept many hard corals in soft coral tanks and while they may grow just a tad bit slower they still live and thrive.

I'd search more for the real answer of why your SPS corals happen to be dieing. Some things you should look into are dKH, Calcium, Iodine, Phosphate, Nitrate, Nitrite, Ammonia, Salinity, and how often you do water changes. If you don't monitor all of these or have all of them under control don't expect to keep any SPS in your tank.

As far as making coral frags of the leather go:

Use a very sharp razor blade and make 1.5inch cuts on the edge of the leather. Take these frags and put them down and wrapped with mesh around rock (DO NOT GLUE DOWN). Don't take more than 3-4 cuts at a time, and wait at least two weeks for the next cutting cycle.

Make sure to dip all fresh cuts and mother colony in Tech-D or Iodine solution for 10 minutes to sterilize woulds.

Place pieces back into tank in high flow area and enjoy!


It might also be worthy to note that you should never frag a leather when it's shedding.

[labnjab]

Thank you for the tips. I ended up selling the whole thing because it was just too large and took up 1/4 the tank and we replaced it with 20 lbs eco-rock from brs


I'd search more for the real answer of why your SPS corals happen to be dieing. Some things you should look into are dKH, Calcium, Iodine, Phosphate, Nitrate, Nitrite, Ammonia, Salinity, and how often you do water changes. If you don't monitor all of these or have all of them under control don't expect to keep any SPS in your tank.



I'm 99% sure it was the leather. We have 16 different sps colonies and it only happened to these 2. It happened the day after we added the leather. i wasn't running any carbon at the time but now I run twice the recommended amount in a reactor. The rtn stopped after starting up carbon. Calcium and alk are maintained by a calcium reactor and are always stable. Phosphate is 0 because I'm running a lot of high quality gfo in a brs reactor. Nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia are always 0 and I keep salinity at 1.025 and its kept consistent with an auto top off. I do 10% water changes weekly.

The only thing I don't monitor that you mentioned is iodine but most reefkeepers don't. Everything in the tank grows like weeds, sps, lps and softies. We have 0 nucience algae and I have to frag our acros every 3-4 weeks to keep them from growing into other coral