Propagating Acropora

Acropora yongei

This documents my second attempt at coral propagation and will be on a Green Acropora Coral that I have had for a while and is growing very well. I planned to take 3 single branch cuttings from the lower part of the animal and each cutting is to be about 1/2 - 3/4 inch.

Propagation

The first picture is of a small cuttings in the Tupperware dish. I ended up attaching all three frags. The frag on the right shows a brown/white tip so it was growing even as I cut it from the host!

Small holes were drilled into the live rock rubble using a phillips screw driver to provide better mechanical support for the frags. Ross Super Glue Gel was then deposited into the hole and a frag was then twisted into place. This is the same procedure that was used for the bird nest coral frags. In this case I decided to attach one frag per rock to see how the corals would develop.
I then let them sit out in the air for about 2 minutes until the glue set and then put them in a quite area of the sump over night to allow glue to harden. Then I place them into the tank attaching the rock with epoxy putty.
As you work with Acropora spp. frags, do not be alarmed by the large amount of mucus that develops on the small branches. This is quite normal and is used by the coral to protect the tissue when out of water. It does however interfere with the super glue gel and you should try to wipe as much away from the base area just before inserting it into the rock. Be sure to handle Acropora frags with a light touch. It is easy to crush the corallite wall around the polyps and do real damage to the frag.
There is no need to rush your work, the glue takes several minutes to begin setting and the Acropora spp. frags may be left out of water for 5 minutes or more with little stress to the animal.
Here three cuttings have been attached to their own small piece of live rock. You may be able to see the glue at the base of each cutting. Each frag emitted a lot of mucus when I pick it up and I did have to wipe the excess off the base area before attaching. You can see that the rocks have virtually no coralline algae growth. These rocks came from my LFS curing tank and had been in there for several years with virtually no light. These rocks will, in several months, become encrusted with coralline as they too go through the grow out period.

Grow Out Time Sequence

The next sequence of pictures shows the grow out rate of one of the attached frags.

The pictures show the start of grow out right after propagation and the frag height is three quarters of an inch. Here you can see that the super glue has turned white as with the bird nest frag and the rock is fairly bare of coralline.

The pictures then show the same grow out coral only 7 weeks later! The first development is the encrusting growth at the rock/coral interface. This appears to be an important first growth process of Acropora in general. Only after the encrusting growth did branches begin to appear and here we see seven starting. Coral height is 1 inch.

The next showing grow out at 10 weeks. Notice that the encrusting growth has not advanced and no new branches have formed. The coral now expends all of its growth energy in branch development. Coral height is 1.3 inches.

The last picture shows the grow out at 18 weeks. There has been no additional encrusting growth and no new branches. However, the 7 branches are thicker and longer and there is increased development of the corallite walls. The coral height is 1.8 inches. Notice the terrific coralline growth on the attachment rock! This is highly desirable if you wish to sell your grow out coral.

By John Rice