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I am very adamant about starting with smaller animals and giving them room to grow and establish themselves. Out of all the species in my system maybe ten of them truly come from the ocean itself. It is also important for you to decide what it is you want to accomplish with your reef aquarium. LeRoy and I have had a quarrel or two about adding too many fish and which ones to add.

Soft corals grows much faster than the small polyp stony corals so placement and space is really important.

After my first year of learning and growing with this aquarium LeRoy gifted me with my second aquarium for this Valentines Day.

It was time to weed my garden and to give all the animals some extra life. So we started my cutting tank. All the corals put in this tank came from small tiny animals that grew into incredible creatures just in one year. The first cutting of an animal was difficult to do but, to my surprise not only has the baby tripled in size so has the mother it came from.

After the first month of having my second aquarium I made 143 plug cuttings, which had anywhere from 2-3 different animals on each plug. We decided to sell the plugs for $20.00 each. In the second month we had already sold over $1,500.00 (yes you guessed it LeRoy looked at me and said "now we have enough to buy you another aquarium").

I had one really bad experience on the propagating side, which I feel is important to share so that perhaps you will not have to encounter this. I was cutting my large colony of red Mexican Palythoas underwater in my tank, removing the polyp down to the stem and then gluing them to the plug and putting the cutting in my new tank. The next day I came into my office the the beautiful 4" peach colored giant calm was dead and had slimed up my whole tank. The only thing I can blame this on is the toxins that came from my Palythoas when cutting inside my aquarium.

When propagating Palythoas, I think one should remove the animal and rock from the aquarium, propagate it, dip it in salt water then place it back in your system where you want it.

This is the 55 cutting tank with the plastic racks

After the first month of having my second aquarium I made 143 plug cuttings, which had anywhere from 2-3 different animals on each plug. We decided to sell the plugs for $20.00 each. In the second month we had already sold over $1,500.00 (yes you guessed it LeRoy looked at me and said "now we have enough to buy you another aquarium"). The most amazing thing to me was that when I made all these cuttings I found I had a second layer of animals that were being covered up by some of the bigger creatures. It is truly important to trim, prune and cut back these animals.

Even after cutting and glue attachment I have seen the polyps expand the same day. Sometimes it is smart to heal some of the animals by placing them in slower current or less light and then to gradually move them up. Again the best way to tell what is needed is by paying attention to the looks of the animal itself.

I really hope this article is helpful and perhaps encourages more people to try to grow a more diverse group of corals. I would love to share more of this experience and to go in more detail with those who have specific questions. Just send your questions on to GARF and I will answer them as soon as possible.

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