Yuma fragging guide....

[zanemoseley]

I'm still semi-new to fragging yuma's but I thought I'd put up a little guide on how to frag a yuma and attach the frags to your plugs.

First you need a fresh razor blade, make sure there is no oil on the blade. Next, gently cut off the yuma from the rock its on. Its best to kinda slowly work around it and then cut toward the middle.

Now you should have a single yuma to be fragged. Place it on a clean surface to cut. I put it on my kitchen counter but I'm in an apartment and don't worry about the counters but if you're in a house avoid damaging your counter.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y218/zanemoseley/whole.jpg

Now its time to cut the yuma in half. Use a side to side cutting motion, don't simply just press down. Try your best to get half the mouth in each of the halves.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y218/zanemoseley/halves.jpg

Now its time to cut one of the halves to pieces. Try your best to get a piece of the mouth with each of the new frags. Cut this like you would a pie from the center outward.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y218/zanemoseley/cutone.jpg

Repeat this step for the other half. The number of frags you cut will be determined by how large the original yuma is and how large you want each of the frags.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y218/zanemoseley/finalcut.jpg

I have been using pieces of ceramic tile as frag plugs. I took a piece of cheap tupperware and drilled many 1/8" holes in it for flow. Place each frag on its own frag plug. In my case the tupperware is placed on an eggcrate rack only about 2" underwater so the top of the tupperware was out of the water, this eliminated the chance of the frag floating out into the open water. If there is a risk of the frags floating off you can rubberband a piece of seran wrap around the mouth of the tupperware and cut slits in it to allow for some flow. It is also best to put the tupperware in an area of low to medium flow.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y218/zanemoseley/fragcup.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y218/zanemoseley/fragcupintank.jpg

Now you're done, the yumas should begin attaching in about a week and begin forming into a circle again. The mouth will regenerate in time.

[tekknoschtev]

Cool photos! Thanks for the guide.

[bradleyj]

Great job Zane, Did you glue the frags down or just set them on the tile? After they attach, do you keep the big peice of tile , or do you break it off so there isn't so much to see in your tank?

[Snakebyt]

great how to.. just need to get the guts to try it

[zanemoseley]

So far it seems pretty hard to kill my orange yumas so don't worry about it too much. I ended up having to net the frags to the tile because they kept wanting to make their way into the cracks between the tiles.

[zanemoseley]

Here they are netted to the tiles.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y218/zanemoseley/net.jpg

[sandlot13]

awesome! great guide. any pictures of final products???

[reefez]

I have heard that some color varations frag easier then others. Have you found this to be true? I have a nice purple yuma about the size of a golf ball that I would like to frag. Just don't want to loose it. I have done it before with ricordias not of the Yuma species. I employed the same method as you only I used different size pieces of rubble in the tupperware container.

[zanemoseley]

Well its been about a month. The pieces this time are taking much longer to heal up. Last time I just cut one in half. I guess this is due to the small portion of the mouth included in each piece. I'd reccomend maybe only cutting into halves if you're worried about the coral.

[organism]

what kind of flow and lighting do you put the frags under? I've read that recently fragged yumas need good flow to prevent infection, curious as to how you keep them healthy during that first week

[discus010]

I have heard people losing bright red yumas when they tried to frag them with a razor blade. Involves a great deal of risk.

[daryn1]

just wondering how the pieces of yuma recovered did they all survive or did they die . it would be awsome to see some updated pics

[CoralNutz]

I tried the exact same technique with 4 different rics. 2 yumas and 2 carribians. Cut all 4 of them in 4 slices. Out of 16 peices only one survived. Next time I will be cutting them directly in half. I think the chances of survival will be better.

Be sure to keep us posted as they recover and let us know how they work out for you.

Thank,
Jeremy

[bluenassarius]

i just split my hot pink yuma in half. no probs, its floating around in my tank unmounted. i need to get some wedding veil to hold them down to a rock.

[Elite]

Always want to frag my ric. but I'm scare that I will kill it. Cool thread. Any update on the frags?? Are they better now?

[Zoalander]

I would like an update because I'm very intrested in how things turned out.

[cook]

I like the flower pot frag idea. Do you think the clay will break down and cause ph problems?