Time to frag the Bubble - How?

[skyeskrapr]

Hello everybody,

Well . . . I've been struggling with a bubble coral (plerogyra sinuosa) ever since I bought it about 4 months ago. It was a pretty large one with two distinct heads sprouting out of the same trunk. I have got a Aqua Dose giving contiunous Kalk drips, Alkalinity is a little high, salinity is fine, temp looks right, and daily liquid supplements of Kent Calcium and Strontium. It stays pretty high up in the tank and is under a coral life compact flour. on about a 12-hour timed cycle. About once a week, I feed it a piece of krill which it eats in about 15 min or so.

Anyway, one of the heads looks good . . . full polyp extension . . . sweeper tentacles . . . the works. The other one looks like complete #$%@. I can't figure out why one is doing so well and the other . . . terrible. Last night, I am blasting the rock with the baster . . . so I go over to blow any debris off of the coral . . . when basically all of the white tissue on the bad side just let's go and flies all over the place . . . I think it's pretty much history?

So now I am faced with lopping off one side of it. Is this the right thing to do . . . or will it regenerate with the other half doing great? If so . . . how do I do it. I don't want to hurt the one that's looking great. Just take a hack saw to it or what?

Anybody ever had to do this before . . . I've never had to frag one of my corals before.

Thanks,

Skyeskrapr

[cats&fish]

I am going to hitch on to this thread. I have a bubble coral as well. It is kind of the same thing I have happening. One side of it looks like it is dying off while the other side looks healthy.

[the_colonel]

I've cut bubble in half with a large tree/branch pruner (sp?). The only difference was both sides were healthy, and both sides are still doing well, one in tico mikes tank, one in mine.

[ruben resendiz]

i have a bubble coral as well . how many mouths does it have? if it has one on the dead side just try to feed it thats what i did. and it doing just fine

[skyeskrapr]

I have tried feeding both sides. The good side usually wolfs it down . . . the bad side. . . hit or miss. But I'm pretty sure the bad side has bit the dust now . . . completely showing it's individual "teeth". No bubbles, no tentacles . . . tips of the teeth are starting to turn brown. Just not sure if it is save-able. Looks pretty much dead. Just not sure what happened? I would think that if conditions were right for the one side . . . the other side would be doing just as well. Guess not?

[Tasher80]

You could cut it with bone shears. That would cut it really well.

[ylmaya]

If it is dead - then you don't really have to cut it at all - eventually it will grow over with coraline and look like part of your rock. I wouldn't risk hurting the "live" side.....unless you hate the way it looks -