Geraud

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My Sarcophyton elegans has moved over the years from its original rock, to my main rockwork, then to the glass, and it is now fully there.

I am fine with it, however, recently it has started splitting in half, and eventually I will want to offer one part as a frag.

So I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations on how to do that without hurting the coral (if it is an elegans, they are known to be more sensitive than other species of the same genus). Note: I am not in a hurry, so if it involves siliconing a disc on the glass and waiting, I am fine with that.

A couple of pictures: (side with flash in order to show the details), click to get the full size.
On March 29th, it looked like this: (the yellow underneath it is not connected, it is a sponge)
IMG_20200329_193033687.jpg

Yesterday. I have highlighted the "threads" that are visible as the two parts separate.
IMG_20200409_132117971.jpg

And finally today, seen from above: the cap part itself has not split yet, but it becomes more "wrinkled" close to the future separation.


IMG_20200410_160449781.jpg
 

Geraud

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Thanks marrone, I was thinking about the razor blade solution, I will use that once the two parts have naturally separated.

I recall S. elegans to supposedly be weaker than the other leathers (as in: cannot just slice a piece to get a frag, for that reason a method to frag them was to put a ziptie and tighten it slowly over days). But that was from experience in France about 15 years ago, where it was already very hard to get them (a frag was 600 euros)
 

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