Zoa Fragging Question

[makai531]

I have some zoas overgrowing a 1" sq. tile and I want to split the group into 2-3 groups. This will will the first time I've fragged anything. I have watched quite a few videos on the process and think I understand enough to do it safely for me and the zoa.

 

Here's the question- quite a few of the zoas (single polyp) that I've acquired recently have the polyp mounted to a fragment of a frag plug, then mounted to a separate frag plug. I haven't seen that method explained online. What's the purpose of the in-between fragment piece?

[Crob5965]

I know that frags from IC (Incredible Corals), have a small piece of tile or something glued to a Frag plug, I dont know exactly why it's done that way but if I had to guess, I would have to say they are all cut from 1 large piece of tile/rock or whatever and then glued to the frag plugs. I don't think you see that method on Youtube because I think it only makes sense to do that if your buying large colonies and fragging or propagating, which most of us dont do.

 

but I could be way off lol, either way I have not seen any issues with it being done that way.

[ArtFully Acrylic (Adam B)]

Hi Makai! Crob is correct.  In the cases he described, we receive the colonies on a thin disk and it is easiest in our case to cut the disk and then mount the individual pieces to frag plugs.  In most cases, when we receive colonies this way it is from some sort of a coral farm where corals are grown this way for the trade.  This can carry a smaller environmental impact as they are not collected from natural reefs.  In other cases, when natural rocks come in covered in zoas the process for us is much the same.  We are however using a diamond bit band saw which is purpose built for this and when cutting large amounts of colonies it is generally the most efficient way.  That being said...for really tight and/or valuable zoas this method isn't always the best as it can result in some "carnage" along the way.  In those cases there are a number of other routes we may take to accomplish the fragging if necessary.

[makai531]

Thanks Crob and Adam! The explanation makes sense. BTW, it wasn't the IC frags that I was referring to. Those frags were so sweet! Multiple polyps (10-12) on a cut piece of rock. Thanks again!

 

The ones I was curious about are fragments that are the size of a singular zoa polyp (not high end), which as you described, would have resulted in a very high carnage rate if deliberately cut that way. I thought perhaps they were mounted in a two step process- polyp to fragment to frag plug which didn't make sense to me in time, cost, and effort. Thanks for the replies.

[thakki]

Did you complete splitting them into groups? If so, any lessons learned? I am currently in the same boat...need to move the zoa's from frag plug to the rock.

[makai531]

No I didn't get around to it. Life sent me a huge curve ball and the tank was neglected. Good luck with splitting them!