fragging acans

[jerl77]

so let me get this strait. i can just cut throw the acan with a deamal tool.and then just let it heal and it that easy?

 

[tosiek]

Actually people cut under it and then break it through the head, the lazy ones who like to kill alot of the acan dremel through the heads. Cut through the rock under the acans untill your just hitting the acan then stick a screwdriver or something in the cut and twist to break the piece. use a razor to cut the skin apart.

Or coral cutters work too if the piece is thin but the cut is more random.

 

[OctaviousMonk]

I second that. Cut from behind until you get through a substantial portion of it without hitting the polyps. Then use a chisel or screwdriver with a hammer to split it the rest of the way. The dremel blade gets way to hot and causes way more damage.

 

[Deanos]

There's an article on how to frag acans stuck atop the Coral Farming forum :banghead:

 

[coralite]

Actually people cut under it and then break it through the head, the lazy ones who like to kill alot of the acan dremel through the heads. Cut through the rock under the acans untill your just hitting the acan then stick a screwdriver or something in the cut and twist to break the piece. use a razor to cut the skin apart.

Or coral cutters work too if the piece is thin but the cut is more random.

I wholeheartedly disagree. True you want to cut the coral on the underside using a dremel but then you are just cutting skeleton. Using a screwdriver to rip apart the tissue is just as bad as not cutting it at all. I use a dremel on both sides which makes a nice clean cut that even quarter polyps can recover from. You'd be surprised the tiny scraps of flesh that survive being separated from the colony. I try to cut between polyps but sometimes you just cant help it. Anything that reduces skeletal and tissue injury will promote the best and fastest healing. Cut it all the way around. Concerns about the dremel wheel heating up are somewhat misguided because a hot wheel will cauterize the flesh where it cuts it, further promoting healing.

FWIW, there is a 4 yr old marine depot article on cutting acans featuring myself cutting an acan while wearing purple gloves. Needless to say I have been fragging acans for a while.

 

[tosiek]

For what its worth it doesn't really matter, the coral will grow back and heal itself either way you do it. And your argument on why you think i was wrong is greatly determined by how hot the blade gets while your cutting the coral.

If your fragging alot IMO i would rather dremel the top so i know where im cutting without guessing and trying to create fracture lines going between the heads. specially if your getting larger colonies. But that all depends how hot your actually getting the blade when cutting up the corals.

But, i do disagree with your thoughts on cauterizing. It will not promote healing. Your actually boiling or burning the cells in the area, damaging them and the surrounding ones. When the blade passes through the tissue and skeleton its not only adding heat to the skin but also to the skeleton around the blade. Think scar tissue is formed because your also destroying the ability to translate the damage for the body to repair the dead skin cells. Like cutting phone lines leading to the brain when your adding enough heat to the area. Thats the jist of what i remember from doing some reading on burn damage for a friend while i was waiting outside a hospital in Boston for his daughter who had burn scarring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauterization

Compared to cutting/ripping which separates the cells in the tissue or damages them enough to repair themselves. You should be getting quicker heal times breaking the acans from the bottom than if you were cutting and really digging in with the dremel into the rock/skeleton your trying to separate from the top. The blade does get hot and quick. I can't find the article on the differences between heal times, scarring, and such between surgical cutting, ripping, burning (cauterize) and laser surgery. Was great info on the differences and what produced what results and why.

i wouldn't think that differences between medical procedures and results on cell healing/reproduction would be that far off from corals.

I dunno, ive done my share of cutting/fragging and like to watch the patterns on how it grows, what makes it grow in certain directions or area's quicker, ect. You spend so much time watching the coral its hard not to notice healing and behavior due to fragging, coral chemical wars, random falling rocks...:theyareon

Ive just recently fragged some acan pieces and a large chalice frag and got lazy both times. Ran the dremel through parts of it and have noticed after 1-3 weeks of healing that the parts that were run through with the dremel after it worked hard going through underlying rock the coral grew onto are not healing as quick as the pieces i broke apart after i scored the bottom. Parts that were broken and torn/cut are bubbling over the skeleton showing while the places that the hot dremel blade cut through are flush with the skeleton and not bubbling over in growth.

Anyways, i smell some fragging discussion. And im surprised this wasn't talked about anywhere considering you get to see super fast regrowth rates on alot of the corals. In 2-4 weeks you can see acan heads regrow themselves and pop out a bunch of baby ones off of cut/fragged pieces. I wish i could cut off my arm and get a new one in a week or two, or get to see regen/growth rates that fast on cuts.

Or maybe noone looks at is as closely as i do.. :sad2: