harvesting devil's hand

[Jason Donohoe]

Any tips for harvesting Devil's Hand leathers? I have let a large number of small leathers grow in my tank but I now need to make room for some other corals.

I was planning on cutting them at the base with a scalpel and mounting them to frag plugs (a local lfs will take and sell them for me).

I also thought tying them off at the base may work.

Does anyone know if they will grow back from the stumps? Should I kalk paste the stumps? Cover them with small pieces of LR for a few weeks?

Any thoughts appreciated.

[Jason Donohoe]

PS free to anyone who wants to pick them up!

[Mako Shark II]

Yes, yes & yes.

Or a fresh single-edge razor blade. If you cut cleanly at the base / rock attach point, you might get it all. Kalk paste to finish it off, as needed.

Just remember to do a water change afterwards, because the Devils hand will release toxins, when cut.

[Jason Donohoe]

Concern about toxin potential is part of the reason that I am cutting them back now. I have a hammer coral and some shrooms in QT waiting to go in. I wanted to minimize any cutting after adding them.

Any suggestions on the best way to use the kalk paste? I have never had to use any (no aptasia, fingers crossed and using QT). How do you apply the paste to the area? Syringe and then smear?

[Jason Donohoe]

Also, do you think removing the cut portions immeadiately will reduce the toxin release? I can't image much would come out of the stumps.

[gflat65]

Cutting in the tank will be the largest toxin release you should see (unless you wring it out too:)). If you can remove them, I'd do that before cutting. if not, WC and plenty of carbon to offset any issues. For kalking, I put a bit of pickling lime in a tupperware container, add just enough water to make it somewhat fluid, then inject with a large syringe to the area you want to kill. Be careful using too much at once, though, as it will spike your pH.

I've not had much luck in the past getting softies to attach via super glue (some have, but not me). I let my softies and leathers lay on a bed of crushed coral with low-med flow. Once they attach to a piece of crushed coral, I glue the crushed coral to a rock for attachment.

[Mako Shark II]

Agree w/ glfat65. Get it out of the tank, prior to cutting, if possible. (I was just saying your process is essentially correct.)

Mounting Softies:
Use an Onion bag from the super-market, rinse it, and cut into appropriate squares. Then, use rubberbands or fishline to tie the bag square piece to the substrate, sandwiching the desired softie-fragment between that onion bag and your LR substrate. Allow frag to foot, then remove the bag after several days.

Alternative:
Sandwich your cutting between a few pieces of LR or rubble rock. If you use rubble, then you can mount the rubble onto LR later w/ epoxy.

If you try to rubberband the frag directly to LR, you could cut the softie with the rubberband. (Not that I've ever gotten four Devil Hand frags out of one failed attempted mounting.......):hmm3:

[Jason Donohoe]

Unfortunately taking them out first isn't an option. They are attached to some of the large structural pieces of the rockwork.

I have some pieces that fragged off themselves that are attaching to the substrate. I'll try and glue those and use the onion bag method on the newly cut ones.

Thanks for the help.

[Mako Shark II]

Then,
Water Changes.
Water Changes.
Water Changes.

[spsfreak]

I have (in my past 65g mixed tank) frag\cut my devils hand and Green Nepthelia with just plain scissors (sharp of course) and just made sure that I had plenty of carbon in the system. Never any water changes or anything of the sort, never any problems. The only thing I would mention is to sterilize the scissors with a flame before cutting, cut fast and again make sure they are sharp.

[Mako Shark II]

Carbon. Water Changes. Either way.

Idea there being: get the toxins out.

[spsfreak]

agreed, either or both work.

[Jason Donohoe]

All the harvesting is done! I cut out aproximately 12 - 15 2-3" colonies in total. I spread it out over 7 days with 3 cutting days. 2 of the days I did small water changes (coincided with my regular schedule) and on the third I did not. I do run carbon regularly so that didn't change. I did not notice any effect on the other corals in the tank (other devil's hand, cabbage leathers, some zoas and shrooms). I added a hammer coral aprox 8 hours after finishing cutting and it looks better (1 day later) than it did in the QT. I plan on changing out the carbon (it has been aprox 3 weeks now anyway) and doing another small water change (5G in 90G system).

Thanks for all the advice.

[Mako Shark II]

Good Lord! 15??? That thing must have been huge!

[Jason Donohoe]

I have 2 large Devil's Hand leathers, each aprox 1 foot across. They have been fragging/budding on their own and I have been letting the buds grow where they fell, and in some cases moving the buds to other rock pieces and lodging them in holes. It is only now that I am looking at adding some diversity to the tank that I needed to remove them. I left the 2 oringinal leathers as well as 2 of the new colonies. The smaller ones are each about 6 inches high and 4" across.

[Jason Donohoe]

Forgot I had a pic:

http://i380.photobucket.com/albums/oo249/jasondonohoe/Dec52008009.jpg

[Mako Shark II]

OMG! It's huge! What else to you have in there?

[Jason Donohoe]

On the other side of the tank is a much larger colony of cabbage leathers than that one:

http://i380.photobucket.com/albums/oo249/jasondonohoe/Dec52008008.jpg

Other than that I currently have 2 mushroom colonies, a small zoa colony and the recently added hammer coral.

I am looking to gradually add more zoas and mushrooms as well as a bubble coral, some xenia and GSP.