We tried to frag a mushroom today using the bridal veil method. Kind of traumatic for all involved! Any idea how long until we can tell if it worked? The frags look kind of unhappy right now!
fish-welcome To DRC
The mushroom will look ruff for a couple days to a couple weeks. Keep it in a good flow area as bridal veil tends to grab hair algae.
u could split that shroom with almost anything…razor, scissors, a jagged tooth…and im pretty sure youll grow two more…also, what kind of shroom is it?..i only have experience fragging disco’s and rhodactis…
Welcome! How did you find the DRC?
The should start to look better in a couple days. Did you just cut the main stalk off or did you cut it into pieces as well? It can take up to a week sometimes for the mushroom to reattach, but I’ve also had them attach in a couple of days.
As longballz asked what type of mushroom was it? The term “mushroom coral” is used as a common name for at least 100 or more corals. Photos would be helpfull. The majority of mushrooms in the hobby are either discoma or rhodactis, but there is also Ricordea and Sarcophytons(Sarcophytons are very different from the other three).
Jon
I wish I could identify the mushroom but I don’t have much knowledge yet. This is my first tank. No camera for photos either. Gordonious, you recommended the DRC to my brother and me. We were at the last meeting. Thanks, the clubs been helpful.
I cut a smaller shroom off at the stalk and moved it. I cut a larger one off at the stalk and I tried to cut it in half. I used a razor, but I am afraid I did it wrong since one piece got all of the mouth. The two halves are withered, but it has only been two days. The other whole mushroom kinda fell off the rock because I did not tie the netting tightly enough, so it is hanging on the net with no contact with the rock. I am hesitant to pull the rock out and retie the netting since they are so traumatized already.
Any feedback is welcome
Thanks,
Chris
retie vail and light flow for a week or so and it will be fine. most pieces of shrooms will just regenerate a new mouth in time. there really is no harm done. just give it time to attach
+1 I’ve reached in and ripped apart mushrooms and had three or four new ones pop up where I did it.
[quote=“Jocephus, post:7, topic:1251”]
+1 I’ve reached in and ripped apart mushrooms and had three or four new ones pop up where I did it.[/quote]
+2 … pretty soon, you’ll have more shrooms than you ever wanted … lol
Believe us when we say you almost have to TRY to kill a mushroom, and then you’ll only be sucessful about 2% of the time.
The way I did mine was cut it up and left it the tank on the sand bed. When they were large enough and they had attached to the sand, I put a drop of crazy clue on a rock and stuck the shroom to it. I have had no trouble with this method and I did not have to deal with the bridle veil.
Tom
+2 it will be probably be fine as long as conditions are right. (ok I typed that and took too long to respond so it will probalby be +4 now, lol)
Are you running carbon at all in the system? It’s a good idea to run carbon on any system that houses freshly cut corals, especially softies, as they release a lot of toxins that can harm other animals. If you don’t have a canister or reactor to place the carbon you can put it in a media bag in a high flow area of the sump. Don’t have a sump? You could put the carbon dangling in the tank in front of a power head for 3-4 days. Might take a little away from the look of the tank, but it works and I do it all the time.(though I leave the carbon there for 1-2 weeks sometimes)
As martinfamily already mentioned regardless if a mouth is present or not it has a good chance of making it. It is a good idea to leave a mouth if it is the first time you are fragging the coral and aren’t sure how well it will take it or if it is an expensive one. If you get a new mushroom and only have one polyp it may be a good idea to let it form a second polyp on it’s own and then you can frag the large of the two and still have a back up.
Mushrooms are a great beginner frag. Just make sure to use gloves and goggles.
Actually I also like the method Tom mentioned a lot better then the bridle veil as well. Though in many tanks if you have a low enough flow area that the shrooms don’t blow around you need more flow for coral health. What some people will do is put a little crushed coral in a little plastic container like an old yogurt cup or plastic butter tub and put it in the bottom with some bridle veil over it. Once it has attached to the crush coral you can glue it to a bigger rock.
What I used to do was just set up a 48" slow flow tank that has 6 dividers in it. I filled the bottom with crushed coral and just check the shrooms in the tank which is plumbed to the tank that holds the mother colony so the shrooms didn’t have to adjust to different water parameters. Water trickles in one side and leaves on the other. When the water flows back into a sump it flows into a filter sock and over some carbon to catch any lose shrooms the strainer didn’t get and to filter out any toxins the corals have released. Then I got too busy with DRC and looking for a “real job” so I shut the thing off. I gotta get back into propagating again.
Jon
Belive me, you cant kill some types of mushrooms even if you try. If you dont belive me come down and watch me hack away some of mine… they will be back in 2-4 weeks as big as ever.
The method for attaching shrooms that I use is as follows…
Since I attach everything to frag plugs to make my life easier, I have found that Lowes sells thin walled PVC pipe made for sprinkler systems and the like that perfectly fits around the Large concrete plugs that TB aquatics sells. I took a piece of that pipe and cut small rings off with a dremmel tool. On these rings I rubberbanded a piece of bridal veil that covers one side. After I frag my mushrooms I just put them on the plug and drop one of these covers over. In 2 weeks or so I take it off and I have a frag that is ready to go. The only problem I have found is my tang likes to pick the at the diatoms that form on the bridal veil, and will sometimes lift the covers off. This is easily fixed by cleaning the covers between uses.
P.S. If anyone wants to try this dont go out and buy the pipe. I bought an 8’ section and have probably used about 6" so far…
Hum… having a little trouble picturing this. Have any pics?
Basically a frag plug with a little piece of PVC tube around it about 1" high with bridal viel on top of it. looks like a pipe with a mesh screen on it almost and when you look in theres a mushroom looking up at you. I went down to Icy’s on Sunday (and then it got ICY! lol)
Since that picture I have also made a shorter version, which is better for regular mushrooms. The size in that pic is good for Yumas, but nomral mushrooms have to much room and swirl around a little. In the shorter version it doesnt do that.
Another pic…
Very cool, Bellamy.
Thanks for all the advice on my first frag. Next time I will certainly consider some of these techniques with the pvc pipe. I had a question for Bellamy. In your picture with the pvc pipes, I noticed greenish centered polyp cluster under the second pair of pvc pipe. A similar polyp hitchhiked its way into our tank and I have no idea what it is. Will it multiply?
thanks
cvella-that lone zoa polyp will eventually spread with the right conditions…
icy-your mushroom method is neat. do you typically do one 'shroom per plug, or have u loaded up some of the plug with more than one shroom?
also…are ric’s in the same category as disocs and rhodactis when it comes to fragging durability?