How to frag zoas ?

[Peter9]

I have this nice colony not sure how to frag it

 

[Cook]

Welcome to ARC! It's probably easiest to do a quick youtube search for zoa fragging. Use proper PPE for zoas as some can be toxic, since it's hard to tell which ones, assume they all are. Use protective eyewear, gloves, and cover the area with plastic where you will be working. Fragging zoas is pretty simple, look for natural spaces in the colony where the mat in between the polyps can be cut. Since they are on a rock, you probably will need a saw, but you might be able to use a knife and bone cutters if the rock is soft enough. Hope that helps.

 

[jcook54]

I've been trying work out how to best describe how I frag zoas and @Cook is right, Youtube is your friend on this one. Rather than try to detail how I do it, I'll give you a few pointers that might not be covered in some Youtube videos.

• You're going to kill some of the zoas by cutting them, smashing them or gluing them down. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get every last one and I ended up with a zillion little 1-2 head frags. When you evaluate the colony as a whole, look for the big clumps and if one or two (3?) need to be cut apart to make it happen, don't worry about the small losses.
• Go at it with bone cutters if you don't have a saw and really try to dig and get some of the rock with the zoas. Any tiny piece of the underlying rock you can get will really help in getting them glued down. Even a little speck of coralline algae on one the bottom of a "mat" can secure a whole group to a frag.
• If you can remove the rock, a cold chisel might be a good option too. Many time I fired up the band saw to cut a large rock into pieces only to find that I could do it cheaper and easier with a piece of cardboard, hammer and cold chisel. Live rock comes apart pretty easily when you apply some pointed pressure and you may be able to get some of the large chunks off with this method.

 

[Steve Burton]

I use the waiting method a lot. I glue the frag on a rock, also glueing small pieces of rock or frag plugs around it. When it spreads I can then remove the original plug or small pieces it's grown onto.