Fragging zoas and buttons.

[Anonymous]

Now that I have my first fragging under my belt (frogspawn), I have some buttons that are taking over my tank so I am going to attempt to frag them for trade to the LFS. How do you go about doing it? I have heard some people just throw rubble rock into the mat and tehy will over grow it eventually, which will be step 2 for me, but right now my 2 biggest pieces of rock about 15 pounds a piece are about 90% covered in them. If I trim them will they survive? Do I just pull them off the rock and how about the connecting tube that connects them all together? Any help will be appreciated. They are nice to have but are rapidly taking over the tank. Just need to trim them back a bit. TIA.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

I use a chisel and hammer and break a clump off the main colony. Trying to pull them off always results in torn up zoos for me.

btw...wear some gloves.

 

[Anonymous]

Why the gloves?

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

paly's secrete palytoxin.

Edit - read this. http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.p ... =palytoxin

 

[Anonymous]

I've been tagged with the toxins twice now. The first time I didn't know why I got so sick, the second time I saw the pattern. It's not pleasant.

I doubt it's Palytoxin but it was definatetly some type of toxin secreted from Protopalythoa when I cut the colony. As I understand it, all Zoanthids should be considered toxic.

Place the colony in a bucket if you can before fragging (keeps pets away from the water). If you can't take the colony out of the tank then perhaps GAC will absorb the toxins.

 

[Anonymous]

I'd just find a loose place in the mat and pull. If the rock is small enough, you can use an exacto knife to cut off what you don't want. Just be sure to glue the mat and not the polyps onto some rubble.

Second the wear of the gloves

 

[Anonymous]

I will have to try to pull them off as the two pieces of rock are verylarge and are the 2 pieces that hold the aquascape together. If I cut them or rip them in the tank will it poison the tank inhabitants?

 

[Anonymous]

My LFS actually had an idea worth trying and it worked. I put a powerhead pointing at the rocks and after a while they just let go and float around to be scooped up with a net. Only problem is if you miss one lol. I tried it, three polyps came off and I called it a night while I was ahead. I will try to combine that with the peeling off the rock technique tomorrow.

 

[Anonymous]

My LFS actually had an idea worth trying and it worked. I put a powerhead pointing at the rocks and after a while they just let go and float around to be scooped up with a net.

Nice. I'll have to remember that one. I've done that with mushrooms, I never thought it would work with Zoas.

Cool.