Frag’d It: the experiment

Mike Paletta gave a talk at my marine society (MAST) a few years ago.  Back in 2006 I had a bit of success with SPS colonies.  I’d even been selling SPS frags for about a year.  Mike’s talk was very inspiring.  He taught me that fragging helps keeps coral in the ocean and it’s a great way to subsidize the hobby.  I went home and fragged until I could frag any more.

What stuck in my mind, however, is that frags grow better and more quickly when they’re glued on their side.  Mike said they grow more quickly that way since it’s natural.

When a storm knocks a few pieces of coral off a colony what happens to it?  Does it land on its end and apply some cyanoacrylate to itself?  Probably not.  It usually lands on its side and encrusts.  A frag on its side will also have more surface area in contact with the rock its going to bond to (side VS end).  Therefore the growth will happen more quickly.

I say “Yes, but…”.  Super glue will kill off the side of the coral its touching.  If half the coral is covered in glue, then isn’t the advantage of flesh contact gone?

This concept has been bouncing around in my head for a while now, so it’s time for an experiment!  This bring back memories of grade nine.  Now all I need is a cute lab partner who won’t go on a date leading to a semester of awkward science classes.  Um, or something.

Scarlett documents the experiment…and still won’t go on a date with me.

Background

I did some reading on fragging SPS corals.  All I could find on the subject was some anecdotal stories saying that side fragged coral grew faster than coral placed up and down.  An example:

It’s been said that, when mounting frags, it’s helpful to lay the coral on the base so as to have the tissue touching rock. I believe the philosophy behind this is that the exposed area will be one of fastest growth, in order to repair itself. by placing this side up, you get new coral growth faster. It is also said that the tissue exposed to rock will tand to drop and encrust the rock quicker. However, in my experience with trying both ways, I have not noticed a considerable difference either way. However, my frag holding tank is not setup to allow uniform conditions for all frags, so that may have scewed my opinion somewhat.

Let’s hope our experiment turns out better than this.

Hypothesis

This feels like a coin toss, but I’m going to say that a properly side mounted frag will come out growing a bit faster than an end mounted one.  The extra contact with the growing surface will help it grow more quickly.  The upright mounted frag will grow upwards more quickly, but once the sideways mounted frag catches on, it will grow quicker.

Method

Take four newly cut pieces from two different colonies and place one of each colony up and down and one on the side.  That will give us two of each variable.  I’ll apply minimal glue as to not kill off the flesh.  They will be placed beside each other in a frag rack and we will measure the growth every two weeks.  The frags I cut are from a blue millipora and a green acropora gemmifera (?).  Forgive the crappy pictures.  The wife hid the DSLR somewhere in the house, so the iPhone was all I had.

Here’s pictures of the last night’s fragging festivities:

What do you think will happen?  Check back in about two weeks and we’ll update you.