Elegance Coral too big, read once that they can be cut, any

[jrodrig692]

My uncle has a 120 gallon, and has an elegance coral that he has had for about 3 years now. The problem is that the coral when it is fully open is about 12+ inches in diamter. Its burning everything around it. Being it was his first coral, he's been holding on to it for as long as he can. I once saw something about cutting an elegance. Can this be done, if not he'll have to sell it. Thanks.

 

[Reeffreak]

Marc,

Have you done this before?

If this worked, from the sounds of it you could do this with most LPS corals. I have a brain coral that is starting to get out of hand.

Steve

 

[jdeets]

There is a fairly detailed description on GARF's website of how they do this with bubble corals. (Good luck finding the link for it on their page, though...)

 

[fudge1]

Steve,

No,ive never personally tried this,but have seen the seperation portion of the exercise take place sucsessfully.

There are many references to this process heres a couple,
http://www.athiel.com/lib3/lpsprop.html


http://www.athiel.com/lib/txtfiles/catalaprop.html

There are other LPS that can be done aswell,but seem more difficult...there is less of a distinction between the polyp and the skeleton,making it more difficult to seperate the two without damage.

HTH,Marc.

[ August 02, 2001: Message edited by: fudge ]

 

[fudge1]

jrodrig,


Yes it can be done,but prepare yourself for awhile in the O.R.!

Youll need a hacksaw or dremel...latter is better.
You must remove the coral(polyp retracted)from the tank,and score the skeleton as much as possible WITHOUT cutting the polyp.
Then you must break the two,with only the fleshy portion holding the two together.

Then place back in the aquarium,but place one half as high as possible over the other half,and over a couple of weeks,slowly raise that side higher and higher and youll see the polyp slowly start to seperate.


Good luck,keep us updated,Marc.

 

[Bubafat]

I have personally done this with a bubble coral. Pain in the ass, but a good experience. Took about 4 weeks for it to completely severe. Take your time and I would advise you to not try to do this with such a hard to keep species.

Buba

 

[jrodrig692]

Thanks for the info. I guess the next question is whether it is worth the risk of breaking it and risking it dying, or just selling it.