Well as promised here is my fast and simple process to frag ricordea. This method can also be applied to any Corallimopharian.
1. Pick the ric you want to frag. In this demo I used a flourescent green with pink mouth ricordea floridia. It was being a p.i.t.a. and not attaching to a rock so I decided to use it. Make sure you pick a fairly large > 1'' healthy specimen to increase healing time and likelihood of success. Here is the ric I picked- (haha that rhymes...)
Picked it up-
Here's a shot of the base, notice how the two sides of the base are attached to rubble but the middle is not. Makes it easy to cut through and then when they are healed attach to a rock using superglue gel (never glue the flesh of a mushroom).
2. Get your materials ready. I used a sharp hobby knife I got from Ace Hardware and that old towel I used to keep my hand dry so I could take pictures. The glass on the towel is what I use as the top of that tank (I shattered the other panel trying to pull them apart, so it's just half a glass top now). People recommend cutting on a plastic cutting board or something similar (not wood). I've started using the glass as a cutting board and it seems to make the cut a LOT smoother since the surface is completely flat. The only thing you need to worry about is breaking the glass (like it falls off the table....or you step on it.....).
3. Put a little tank water on the glass and then pull the ric out and place it on the now wet piece of glass.
Here's another pic of the foot-
4. Now hold the ric in place with your fingers (it is kinda slippery but it's not too hard to hold) and make ONE, CLEAN cut straight down the middle of the ric's mouth and foot. Notice in the picture you can easily see half the mouth since it's pink.
Picture of both pieces, you can see half the mouth on each piece (the pink)-
5. Take each half seperately and swirl them around in some tank water for a few seconds to get the slime off of them(your suppose to do it in a container seperate the tank and then dispose of the water, but I just swirl it around in the tank, which is not something you want to do with
soft corals like leathers). Then place them on some rubble (or
crushed coral in this case) in a low flow area so they don't get blown around and let them heal up and attach to the rubble.
I'll have another pic up sometime tomorrow or Sunday to show how they have healed up.
Questions/Comments?
And yes this should be a college course.
