Some people make out fragging corals like it's brain surgery. I am NOT saying anyone here has said that. I've read quite a bit about fragging on other sites. Some people act like it's a friggin' NASA shuttle launch.
I'm DEFINITELY in full support of safety. Wear latex or rubber gloves. I like thin latex exam gloves that are not powdered. You wash your hands up real good with plain dish soap first. Towel dry and then get your wife to hold the hair dryer while you dry your hands off--just like the hot-air automatic dryers in the mens bathroom. Get your hands DRY DRY DRY DRY DRY.
Get your wife/girlfriend to help you get the gloves on. Roll them up and stuff your fingers all the way to the tips and the pull/unroll/stretch them up your hand.
Get your face shield. At LEAST wear some plastic construction safety glasses. You DO NOT want zoa juice in your eyes up up your nose. Not at all.
Keep the kids outta the room. Having a kid squirted in the eye is worse than you. I'd say borderline child abuse.
Okay safety is done.
Get a plastic cereal bowl. NOT GLASS. Rinse it in warm tap water and rub it with your hands to get off any traces of dishwashing detergent or surfactants.
Get a big towel and fold it up to about 12" x 24" and lay it down on the table.
Get your BRAND NEW exacto blade and put it in the knife body. Screw it down tight. Take it to the sink and wipe it down with denatured alcohol to cut the factory grease off the metal blade. It's a surgical razor blade--try to be careful and not slice your finger off. Move slow and deliberately.
Get your stainless hemostats and your stainless flat blade screwdriver.
Get your small hammer. YES, I said hammer.
Lay out your tools on the towel and pick your victim from the tank.
Remove victim from the tank and put it in the bowl.
If this coral cannot be exposed to air, you should dip the bowl into the tank and allow it to fill completely with water. Put the coral into that bowl WHILE IT'S UNDER WATER. Remove the bowl from the tank.
Okay, got your coral outta the tank.
Pick the spot where you plan to cut on it. You're GOING to cut some of them apart and some of them are going to DIE. Thats how it works.
I usually look for a spot to stick the blade of my screwdriver and split the rock in half. Look for a bare spot. Find a spot to put the blade on top of the rock.
Get yer hammer kids!! :mrgreen:
Smack the rock until it splits. Don't DRIVE the screwdriver all the way in, like you're killin' rattle snakes. Just bust or fracture the rock.
Slice the corals along the base as close to the rock as you can get. Some end up on the left piece of rock and some end up on the right piece of rock. Slice down the middle and pull them apart. No big deal.
Put them back in the tank and let them heal up for a month or 6 weeks.
Rinse off all your stuff. Toss the gloves. Wash your hands. Have a beer.
When they recover and begin to show positive growth--sell 'em!! Have another beer.
Thats for zoas and mushrooms and polyps.
Mushrooms ---- just cut them up with the sharp exacto blade. As long as a small part of the center mouth remains, it will grow into a new mushroom. Slice the foot off the rock or bust the rock up.
Nothing like brain surgery or rocket science. Hell!! I can do it!!
