Gorgonian needs a bit of trimming

[divemonster]

Hey you advanced reefkeepers, I've lost patience trying to find a post where you offered advice. My Candelabra Gorgorian has outgrown its space and needs a bit of culling. CRIPES there is allelopathy taking place between it and a stone cup coral colony competing for the same space...

so...somewhere on a post here i've read that you can cut the branch and some "snot" or "mucus" will issue from the cut area. Can you then use fragment glue to cement the cut branch to a rock in the tank?

I've grown entire plants from clusters of undifferentiated cells so the concept of fragmenting a bit of a soft coral and regrowing it in a different location is not entirely foreign. I would like some sage advice though . . .

[reefnetworth]

yes, ive done it by cutting at a 45 degree angle and traped it in rubble or rock cracks without the use of cement.
just be gentle with it, wear gloves and dont force it!

[divemonster]

thanks!

[figuerres]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13077716#post13077716 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by divemonster
thanks!

the ones I have from tbs rock (brown ones)
are very easy to cut && grow.

what I have done is cut with coral clipers or even garden clippers.

some mucus will come out but not too much.

they will be slipery and hard to hold.

if you can take the rock they are on out of the tank you can use a bucket of chnage water to help keep the snot out of the main tank and make handling easyer.

you can get a rock and a ruberband and use that to hold it to the rock at first, in a few weeks it will grow on to the rock and you can clip off the band.

just like cuttings from soft plants like colius, begonia etc....

the core of my Gorgonia are just a bit hard but not like a "Woody" stem, more like "Green wood" or a rose bush cane -- young one.

[divemonster]

Denny, you're so awesome! Thanks for the excellent descriptions. With today being my day off, I decided to take the scary plunge :eek2: and "redistribute" the gorgonian. I have 2 different types of brown gorgonian in the tank: flat with polyps on the edges (Blade Gorgonian?) and the round one (Candelabra). The Blade one seems more fragile.

Anyway I used my bonsai tree shears to cut the branch of the candelabra gorgonian. I did all of this underwater while that terrorist of a blenny kept getting in the way. It really went quite smoothly (once I fed that stinker blenny) and now there is gorgonian at both ends of the tank. The result is the tank looks much more "balanced" with the gorgonian at both ends. About 15 minutes after both pieces were in place the polyps were extended.

[figuerres]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13094990#post13094990 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by divemonster
Denny, you're so awesome! Thanks for the excellent descriptions. With today being my day off, I decided to take the scary plunge :eek2: and "redistribute" the gorgonian. I have 2 different types of brown gorgonian in the tank: flat with polyps on the edges (Blade Gorgonian?) and the round one (Candelabra). The Blade one seems more fragile.

Anyway I used my bonsai tree shears to cut the branch of the candelabra gorgonian. I did all of this underwater while that terrorist of a blenny kept getting in the way. It really went quite smoothly (once I fed that stinker blenny) and now there is gorgonian at both ends of the tank. The result is the tank looks much more "balanced" with the gorgonian at both ends. About 15 minutes after both pieces were in place the polyps were extended.

Yeah that candalabra Gorg. is tough as nails. one time I had a nasty mess of red flatworms in my old 55 gallon tank....
I was trying to use flatworm exit to kill them, did not realize how bad they were and semi nuked my tank, lost a bunch of stuff but the gorgs, shrooms and fiji leather all made it thru the mess...
for about a week they looked like they were going to die, then they came out and went back to normal.

I bet if I had the tank space etc... that in 2 years I could grow a ton of them, just keep making 3-4 inch cuttings from some master colonies....