In 1992, I wrote my first article on the fragmenting of corals, fragging for short. At that time fragging corals was primarily done on soft corals and was done more out of the necessity to preserve the corals we had, rather than to share the wealth or any other reason. At that time, our success rate in keeping even soft corals was mediocre at best, so we learned that if a coral started to die, we could sometimes save at least part of it by cutting the healthy portion of the animal away from the dying part and then let the new portion regrow.
Needless to say our success rate was not nearly what it is today. Fortunately, over the next decade or so things began to change dramatically with the biggest change being the shift in the hobby from most of us keeping soft corals to the majority keeping the many varieties of stony corals. As time progressed and our coral keeping skills improved the propagation of just about every coral we keep improved markedly. As a result in 2006 I wrote an article on the fragging phenomenon and how it was starting to change the face of the hobby.
也就是说,随着我们的技能提高和成功的提高,我们不再限于仅仅破坏像Acropora和Montipora, but we became so adept that we now began to propagate expensive corals like rareAcanthastreas,法维亚s和even chalice corals. Corals which at that time were just starting to be appreciated for the vivid colors and shapes from the more common corals we were keeping. In fact, we are now so good at propagation that we are even propagating rare mushroom anemones and many species of anemones, which is significant in that a little over a decade ago there was a call for the harvesting of all anemones to halt, as the number being taken off the reef was exceeding the rate at which different they multiplied naturally.
珊瑚的碎片和我们的成功不仅要保持,而且传播我们许多动物不仅有助于我们许多人现在取得的前所未有的成功,而且还显着改变了人们对爱好的看法。直到最近,许多不熟悉这种爱好的人感到我们只不过是“珊瑚礁的突袭者”。但是,一旦没有自我意识到,对于我们许多人来说,珊瑚和水箱中的某些鱼都远离海洋,他们开始欣赏我们不仅对保护珊瑚的积极影响,而且还在向其他人教育有关生活的积极影响在礁石上。当然,我们还有很长的路要走,尤其是政治家和官僚关于我们的工作以及我们如何做的事情。但是,至少现在由于我们的脆弱努力,我们可以证明我们过去的传播珊瑚的尝试并不是徒劳的。
尽管碎裂的珊瑚有明显的改善,但许多区域仍然有改善的余地。迪特·布罗克曼(Dieter Brockman)在2011年发表了一些关于碎珊瑚的实验,不幸的是,他的一些发现尚未遵循。在他的一个实验中,我正在释义,他将SPS珊瑚片段的死亡率大于1英寸的死亡率与小于一英寸的珊瑚碎片的死亡率。他发现,较小的碎片的死亡率仅在20天后就比较大的碎片大几乎高6倍。但是,如果碎片和安装完全在水下进行,则可以否定这种差异。那时,几乎所有碎片的生存率均未接近100%。不幸的是,当我与那里的许多珊瑚农民交谈时,我没有遇到过任何一个完全在水下裂开珊瑚的人。我意识到这是一个更费力,difficult process, but producing frags with near 100% survivability I think would be worth it.
Over the years I have also conducted a number of experiments in regards to fragging sps corals as well. The most interesting of these findings is that sps corals that are fragged and have the fragged branches laid down on the base rather than planted upright like a tree, put down tissue to encrust on the base anywhere from 3 to 5 times faster thanthose planted upright.After a year these corals also produced nearly double the amount of branches than did the upright mounted frags. When you think about it this makes sense in that if a coral branch is knocked off the mother colony in nature it is more likely to fall flat to the substrate rather than perpendicular to it, therefore it would be beneficial for its survival to produce tissue faster when it is in this position.
Also in agreement with Brockman’s findings, larger frags grew faster than smaller frags. That is, one inch frags produced nearly four times the mass of ½ inch frags at the end of a year. I realize this is not a revelation, but merely further confirmation that bigger frags produce larger mini-colonies faster than do smaller frags. I realize that some coral cultivators will not be happy with my acknowledging this, but having bought my share of ½ inch and smaller frags over the years I now try to get bigger frags when I can. I also realize that due to demand for the rarer and most colorful frags, that getting bigger frags is not always possible.
One other aspect of coral fragging that is often neglected besides size and mounting is how and where to take the frags from on the mother colony. In an excellent article on this aspect of fragging Jake Adams in 2009 in珊瑚礁爱好者杂志(free sub. required) outlines how to do this properly so that the mother colony is not disfigured and over time. He also found that it usually takes 3-4 months for the mother colony to heal completely and look like it did originally. Since most of us who frag our corals do so to protect our rare charges and make sure they are around and to trade for other frags, this article is helpful to help keep the beauty of our tanks and corals intact even after fragging.
What I do hope to convey is that even if the frags are small, if they were properly harvested and mounted they still can become full colonies in a relatively short time.However, one other thing needs to be acknowledged as well in regards coral fragments: they morph. That is, while a mother colony of a coral can look one way, a daughter frag of it can look significantly different over time in a different tank. Many factors affect the final coloration of a coral and to think that all of the factors in your tank, and especially light, water motion and water chemistry will be exactly the same as those in the mother colony’s tank and hence will produce a coral with the exact same coloration is wishful thinking.
在这方面,我已经成长为殖民地,既更好,更又更糟,而且与母亲殖民地一样,而且似乎没有理由。对我来说,这是保留这些珊瑚的乐趣的一部分。一旦碎片开始成长,您就永远不知道会得到什么。有些人可能会劝阻碎片知道这一点,但是使用碎片启动坦克具有许多优势。首先,正如我在本文开头所说的那样,使用碎片非常有限,不会对礁石产生影响。现在,大多数碎片现在都在某人的坦克中持续了两个或三代。结果,他们习惯了圈养的条件,因此,如果您的状况不佳,那么死亡的可能性较小。当它们被俘虏一两代人,然后被碎片放在新的水箱中时,如果您将它们适当地放置在某些空间中,它们会迅速生长,如果条件正确,它们将填充周围的空间他们很快。另外,如果它们周围的空间也充满了碎片,我发现与完整的殖民地不同,这些殖民地从一开始就靠近彼此作战,在其他碎片旁边长大的碎片往往会在它们之间具有某种非军事区域 so they do not battle to the death like I’ve had some wild colonies do.
另一个和我最喜欢的罐子里放着碎片的原因是,您看到的一些碎片确实来自珊瑚,这可能是其中一种。我曾经是小熊维尼这个想法,但是在看到数以万计的几年来,我现在已经接受了一些珊瑚,实际上并不经常看到一些珊瑚,而有些珊瑚是独一无二的,应该被繁殖。尽可能多的人。一个很好的例子是Leng Sy Montipora。至少在过去的十年中,这是最受欢迎的珊瑚之一,尽管有大量的蒙蒂托拉斯被带入并传播的山脉,但我认为,没有真正辜负这种珊瑚的美丽。
它不仅对于它产生的深紫色边缘而言是独一无二的,而且对于杯子部分中的结节而言,它比我见过的任何其他镀层类型的Montipora上的结节更长。伦只给出了非常有限的碎片,当他的母亲殖民地以及每个人都认为所有碎片死了的东西时,每个人都认为这种珊瑚永远消失了。幸运的是,伦为一个年轻的水族馆给了一个小碎片,并完全忘记了他给了他这个碎片。幸运的是,这位水族馆现在的水族馆现在是优雅的珊瑚,一直保持着碎片的发展,最近开始分发女儿碎片。因此,通过将他珍贵的珊瑚分散给年轻的业余爱好者,这种珊瑚在漫长的休假和许多幸福的人们的坦克中又回到了爱好。是的,我确实有一个碎片,实际上我正在将其种植在我考虑过的leng sy帽的脆片旁边。
While I am not a big proponent of naming corals, I now appreciate that now this may be necessary owing to the myriad color patterns many corals show and this may be the only way to keep them categorized so that the corals can be differentiated. The caveat to this is that the same coral may have different names in different tanks as sometimes when a coral comes in two or more colonies arrive at the same time and end up in different tanks.
那么碎珊瑚的到来有多远?首先,今年在MacNA上,将不少于20个供应商出售繁殖的珊瑚。现在,至少有3个大批发商将几乎所有东西的碎片卖给了您当地的鱼类商店。最后,在网上查找时,我发现不少于50个卖方出售碎片,因此不用说,片段现在已成为业余爱好不可或缺的一部分。与爱好的其他一些方面不同,我希望这种爱好的这一方面将来会增长。下一步将是禁止珊瑚的澳大利亚等地区,很快将在这里开始运送碎片。我希望很快就会有其他领域的收集或珊瑚元素也被禁止开始培养碎片。因此,对于我们这些总是想要新事物的人来说,这是个好消息。
Even though keeping corals and getting frags is addicting to me and I have been doing this for a long time, I still can get excited when I come across a frag of a beautiful coral I have not seen before or even one I have not seen in a long time. Sadly the truth is you cannot keep every beautiful coral you see, trust me I’ve tried. But getting and growing frags gives you the chance to keep more corals than I ever thought possible.
While visiting Victor and Lou at全球珊瑚布雷特和托德Cherry Corals或乔和斯科特在独特的珊瑚can produce a sensory overload akin Augustus Gloop visiting Willy Wonka’s, I do try to not get sucked into the vats where they are propagating their frags.
当我回去阅读有关1992年从1992年传播珊瑚的文章以及我提到的其他文章时,很高兴看到爱好在相对较短的时间内走了多远,我们的成功至少可以部分归因于我们能够“碎片”几乎所有东西。对于任何不认为这会产生影响的人,我邀请他们拜访许多卖方,这些供应商几乎可以想象,并让他们成长。为了最好的例子,说明只有碎片时坦克的美丽,并允许仔细观察本文随附的桑杰坦克的图片。我相信他只不过一年前就从碎片开始,所以当碎片的时间和空间和良好的条件时,您就可以发生。真正的灵感和碎片的另一个原因。