fragging a leather

[kribbz]

can anyone give me a good idea on how to frag a leather i was reading a post about a month ago and someone said that you can just cut one of the fingers off is this correct?

[reefrunner69]

Yep. I recommend doing any fragging outside the tank in a bowl of tank water (if possible). Mounting the frags to rocks can be done several ways, with leathers, I personally like the rubber band method. Loosly (but not too loosly) rubberband the base of the frag to a piece of rubble, it should attatch on it's own in a week or two. Make sure after fragging the mother colony and the frag have good waterflow. Use a sharp pair of scissors, a scalpel or a xacto knife to make the cuts. For Soft corals I prefer a scalpel or xacto knife, it lessens the trauma to the coral. With a scalpel or xacto knife you've only got laceration trauma, with scissors you get crush trauma and bruising as well.

[loganj]

You can also nick the side of the finger and put a reef plug of piece of rock tightly up against it. The leather will grow onto the new rock quicker than you think and then you can cut the frag free from the mother colony. Leathers produce a good bit of mucus so the super glue trick doesn't seem to work very well with them. Another option is to let them attach to a substrate such as crushed coral or large aragonite gravel. The gravel can then be glued to a rock. Lots of different ways to do it.
Logan J