Why you shouldn't freak out when you frag your corals

[+mcallahan]

A little air won't hurt them:

[Reybeast]

perhaps not those that are out there, but I had some purple staghorn I think it was, it started as a frag from the one that Bruce has in his front tank at Aquatek. The owner had it in his tank, and he was getting out of the hobby and sold it to me. This thing was so big, it was literally as tall as a 5 gallon bucket, and we broke off multiple frags just to get it into a 5 gallon bucket for me to bring home. It did great, and one day we moved rock around, so I took it out and set it down for around 5 minutes on some newspaper. the WHOLE thing died later!! i see guys selling frags of this type for 30 bucks an inch, and it makes me sick when I think of the value of how much this coral was worth when it died. So the point is that if I frag or move rock, I have water from the tank ready to go to put it into while I do whatever to the tank. Really expensive lesson to learn, that coral was worth many hundreds of dollars.

Rey

Edited November 12, 2009 by Reybeast

[AlexKilpatrick]

The other issue is that those corals are adjusted to being out of the water everyday. It might be an acclimation thing.

[GKarshens]

I agree with the acclimation idea. These corals grew in a place where they are being exposed regularly. Most corals do not. That is not to say I will not take a coral out to frag or move, but I try to get it back in as soon as possible.