Ultra Rastas FS/FT

Ultra rastas??? Send me a pic please 5154512795

 

Pictures would help!

 

I would also like to see. I know they are out there. send picture please 319-361-5600

 

If you ever make it over to the Des Moines area I live in Ankeny and would be glad to show you and I would also trade you cause I'm interested to see them next to my rastas to see the difference

 

I will be fragging zaos this weekend if you wanna stop by. Explaining communal growth is a little difficult even with pics.

 

Before you go fragging it up You need to know that you can kill the entire colony if you go hacking around the mother colony. Its not a matter of whether or not the polyp is 'strong enough' or ' capable' of surviving on its own. It is a matter of whether the polyp you are looking at is part of a colony. if it is. you will kill the colony, as well as the polyp. If you feel confident that you have enough of the same morph around you can give it a go and see if you lose it its not a big deal...

 

Any word on how it turned out?

 

zach I am not following you here. Every polyp is part of the colony. I have taken colonies the size of my hand and cut them down to 2-3-4 polyp frags with no ill effect.

 

It's difficult to explain without visual aids and I wanted to avoid getting into the in depth biology. But the typical way we see reproduction in the hobby is asexual. With that being said The way in which budding occurs on a mother colony will partly depend on environment, however typically we see the shape resembling a colony of sea anemones, with a tube shaped bodies and tentacle rimmed mouths (as we all know) the asexual reproduction begins in a small pulyp bud grow from the tissue known as Coenenchyme near the base of the mature polyp. as these buds grow they gather nutrients through the shared tissues they are budding on. while the Coenenchyme is typically just structural skeletal tissues they do share a common link in the polyps mesoglea (which is typically penetrated with gastrodermal canals and solenia that contain sclerites of calcium and silica. creating the stif areas that hold the polyp up ( the tube structure itself) The mesoglea tissues (mesohyl) is that watery jelly like substances between epithelial cell layers. This is where we want to be careful as other than water, the mesoglea pathways contain muscular bundles and nerve fiber that they share with the mother colony. Among other roles, the important part here is cutting through this shared neveous bundle can cause damage to the mother colony, and may kill the polyp you are targeting for pulling.


While the colony as a whole will be made up of multiple mother colonies it is important to know what to look for when splitting Zoas. I am not going to say that you are always going to kill both colonies or either one really. but if you want the healthiest cuts with the fastes recovery time and safest for the animal that you are cutting in half. Its nice to know where and what you are looking for. after a point the two colonies do separate and while they will still share Coenenchyme tissues they no longer are part of the same mesoglea structure and can be safely split.


Mesoglea layers tend to also carry phagocytosing debris and bacteria, as well as wandering amoebocytes that play a role in the aforementioned materials transport. These cells help to fight infections in the coral by producing antibacterial chemicals.



TL : DR Or god I hated biology:


There is an area to cut and an area to avoid. If you cut and see 'guts' or 'that grey stuff' 'brown stuff' You have killed part of the coral. If you cut it right you will have healing times in a mater of hours rather than days.