Tom,
I was wondering if you knew how large the leathers (specifically a sarcophyton in this case) can get in captivity?? I have a very large one (about 24" round, maybe bigger if he could spread out) that I have in my 180 gal., he will not quit growing. I got the 180 just for him (at least that's what I told my husband) but he is about to grow out of that. I also have lots of babies from this "guy"that are approaching hugeness themselves. So what do I do, get a bigger tank, I wish :-) or should I use the monster for cuttings?? Please just tell me that he is about at his limit as he is especially gorgeous. By the way, thanks for your last reply to my question about the unhinged clam, one of my friends suggested that I super glue his shell to a rock, what do you think?? Also love your web page, we have the same kind of thinking on reefin' ..............thanks.......Debi Cogwell
Debi,
I can't tell you that he'll stop growing even though he's already quite big. He may grow some more or stay stagnant in growth for a long time. It may even divide on its own though, into two or more pieces or just start disintegrating (some year?), with smaller pieces that survive and reattach to different rocks, who knows??? Different things can happen to large old sarcophyton corals.
Sarcophyton (leather mushrooms or toadstool leathers) can sometimes get pretty big in tanks over time. Your's is unusually large, it's one of the biggest I've heard of in a hobbyist's tank. Personally, I would make cuttings if you really don't want to get that monster sized tank for it, or do you!? Lot's of people end up needing to make cuttings by pruning back badly overgrown corals in their reef tanks. Corals are like plants in some ways so you can prune them and use the pruned pieces or cuttings to grow new corals, much like a gardener would do with some plants, shrubs and trees.
To make cuttings from your sarcophyton coral there are a few methods, including cutting off pieces and rubber banding them to new rocks or using fishing line to tie them in place while they attach. Perhaps the simplest method is to use a gravel bowl or rubble bed to let the new cuttings attach to reef safe gravel so that after they attach to the gravel you can then super glue these newly attached cuttings to other bigger rocks so you can sell or trade them. You can just cut slices off an edge or two of the disk of the sarcophyton and then cut those slices up into squares or triangles, ending up about ½" to 2" in size. You could also just cut (prune) the whole outer ring off the mushroom disk, kind of like a big donut and then slice that up into cutting size pieces for attachment. I don't like to super glue the pieces directly to rocks since many types of sarcophyton are slimy enough that they do not stay attached for more than a day or two this way. It takes time for the coral to grow onto and bond to rocks on it's own, and super glue is usually only a temporary bonding to hold the coral in place while it attaches. If you can't hold the coral in place long enough so it can bond to the rock on it's own (often a week or two) then you may become frustrated and start to hate super glue because it doesn't do what you think it should do. It's great stuff, but only if you know it's strengths AND weaknesses...
Gravel bowl or rubble bed attachment coupled with super glue attachment then becomes a very handy method for making cuttings of some very slimy corals and mushroom anemones. Some of these slimier cuttings do not seem to want to stay stuck to super glue long enough to grow onto the adjacent rock for permanent attachment. On the other hand, rock-to-rock attachment is very easy with super glue gel. That's why we can simply let various coral cuttings attach to the gravel first and then use super glue to attach them where you really want them. Actually they (Dick Perrin and other early coral growers) used to just use small rocks or little chunks of rock all packed in next to each other in a tank to form a more coarse rubble bed, much coarser than some prefer to use now with super glue available, but it still works well on many soft corals and disk anemones. They did not use super glue back then (1970's) and sometimes depended on the weight of the larger rubble or rock pieces to hold their newly attached cuttings down once attached so they could then be moved anywhere and stay in place while the coral cuttings were growing larger in hobbyists aquariums and spreading onto larger rocks that they are placed by or among. Today, with super glue gels, it's easy to just use pea-sized (larger or smaller) crushed coral or aragonite gravel to let the coral cuttings attach to and then use this attached gravel that the coral cuttings grow onto as a superior attachment media or interface for super glue gel attachment to large rocks.
Here's how I have made cuttings from sarcophyton, using the gravel bowl or the old rubble bed method. Use very sharp scissors (or a new razor blade) to cut a ring off the whole outer edge and then cut that up into squares. Cut and remove the large ring from the coral quickly and get it out of the aquarium into a large glass bowl, as it will shrink quickly and expel water and slime as it retracts. You will get some of the expelled toxins from the coral in your aquarium water. This will cause the parent coral to stay retracted for a day or two afterwards. Cut the ring into the squares in the big bowl of tank water and let the new cuttings rest a few minutes in the bowl of water while they finish retracting. Swish them off in this water and then put them back into your aquarium onto a bed of rubble, crushed coral or coarse aragonite sand or gravel. Make sure this is in an area where the current can't whisk them away and behind the rocks where you can't recover them. Or, put them in a large bowl in your aquarium with aragonite gravel or crushed coral in it to let them sit on the gravel or rubble to attach to it. Attachment this way may take a week to two weeks. After attachment you can use super glue gel (Mark Barnes' Super Reef Gel works very nicely) to glue the newly attached gravel to rocks where you really want them to stay and grow more. Now you can sell, trade or move the new cuttings around. Maybe a store would at least give you credit for future purchases?
The square or triangular coral pieces (cuttings) grow into round disks and start growing up on stalks right after they attach to rocks or rubble on their own. Within about a month they can look like little corals with round disks on stalks. This can be pretty neat to do and watch. I would cut the coral just before doing a water change and also do a carbon change and run the protein skimmer so you can remove a bit of the slime that the coral kicks out. You may not have room to make a whole slew of cuttings at once, so if you don't have space then consider cutting just a third or half of the outer perimeter of the disk a couple of weeks apart. Water movement can help carry away slime that may still slowly discharge from the cuttings or the parent while healing, so you may want to direct good water movement on the parent coral to help avoid protozoan attack and subsequent slime-out. On the other hand, keeping the cuttings from getting washed away in the current can be more tricky since they can blow away in the water current while still unattached. You can put a mesh or plastic screen covering over the bowl (or wedding veil from a fabric store) which will let some water flow through but keep the cutting from blowing away. If you do not do this then I would not make a lot of cuttings at once since a higher density of cuttings at once can trigger a protozoan infestation more easily. This can happen easily with large batches of actinodiscus (mushroom anemones). You may want to dose iodine or iodide and a good trace element supplement while the cuttings are healing and attaching to the rubble or gravel.
I wouldn't make large cuttings using the gravel bowl method when making cuttings of corals like cladiella or similar branching soft corals that flop over and loose shape when cut for a day or more. Too big of a cutting that sits in a pile may end up just rotting before attaching in a few cases. A large piece of sarcophyton on the other hand, or even a large actinodiscus (just one type of mushroom anemone), should not have this problem. However some mushrooms anemones like large knobby mushrooms often die from protozoan attack if you cut the whole disk off like you do with relatively smooth actinodiscus when propagating them. I find it much more successful to cut off just an edge from large knobby mushrooms and then cut up that long edge into square and triangle pieces to put in the gravel bowl to attach and then glue the attached gravel to rocks. By the way, mushroom anemones of various types (corallimorpharians) tend to not like fresh super glue and almost always detach from it, so the gravel bowl is a very nice accessory for making cuttings of corallimorpharians. Even after you get the mushroom anemone cutting to attach to the gravel they will very often detach from the gravel if you are messy with the super glue and get it on the mushroom while glueing the gravel to the rock where you really want it in the end - they bail off when you get glue on the mushroom anemone. Most real corals are not this finicky though.
I'm glad you like the web page. Thanks for helping me dredge up some thoughts on propagating sarcophyton and other soft corals using the gravel bowl and super glue gel.
Tanks-
Tom Miller