Propagating Pulsing Corals
What you need:
Substrate
Scissors / Scalpel
Needle & Thread
Superglue
Method
Step 1 - Select a healthy parent coral to propagate from. You should look for an animal that is growing well, showing good polyp extension (and pulsing well!), displaying good colouration and is generally in an all round healthy condition.
Step 2 - Select the branch / section of coral you wish to remove and cut it from the parent animal cleanly, with a pair of scissors or a scalpel. The cutting will shrink a little, as will the parent. The parent coral should recover from this within an hour or so, and the 'wound' should completely heal within a week (maximum).
Step 3 - There are two ways of attaching Pulsing coral cuttings to their substrate:
Firstly you can use a needle and thread to 'stitch' the cutting onto the substrate (if you are using a Milliput 'plug', punch a hole for the threads at either end when you prepare it!). The stitching should be fairly tight, but not excessively so, as this will damage the tissue. As a rough guide, you should not be able to see "daylight" between the cut base of the cutting and the substrate after you have stitched it. It is best to use two "loops" of thread, in case the cutting tries to 'escape' from it's new home!
Alternatively you can place the cutting on the gravel bottom of the tank, in an area of low water movement (you may need to setup a shallow plastic bowl filled with gravel for this purpose). After a few days the cutting will attach itself to one or more grains of gravel. At this point you can superglue these gravel grains onto a suitable substrate, which the cutting will then completely encrust within a matter of days.
Gold Pulsing Xenia frags "growing out" in
my home coral farming system.
Step 4 - Place the new frag in a suitable position in the tank - preferably with the same amount of water movement and light as the parent coral was in. Within a week the cutting should have encrusted the substrate completely, and be growing well! If we leave Xenia frags in place in our systems for too long, they tend to attach to the shelving (see picture above!).
Step 5 - Rinse any equipment you have used in freshwater, to remove any coral mucus and saltwater. Wash your hands thoroughly!
hope it helps carmie
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