grafting monte help

ive been searching for a how to on grafting montipora and i havent found a whole lot of info and wasnt sure if anyone could help point me in the right direction. thanks for your help!!

what do you mean by grafting??? like taking multiple chunks and letting them grow together like this??

If thats what you are talking about you just place them next to each other and let them go

If you are talking about a single colony with mixed colors making spots or streaks, as far as I know, no one has figured out how to induce that. The frags of grafted corals now are just accidental creations.

oooooooohhhhhh......grafting eh? looking forward to hearing what you're looking for!
and joanne...........that's one awesome monti cap - - is that yours?

Originally Posted by Barbara

oooooooohhhhhh......grafting eh? looking forward to hearing what you're looking for!
and joanne...........that's one awesome monti cap - - is that yours?

hmmm yup, all mine!!! hehehe

LOVE it!!! might just be picking your brain shortly to help me make one of those myself!

yeah thats what i was looking for! so thats all you do is set them close together? I tried this and had some die off on one of my monte caps thats why I was curious. That picture is amazing!! Im going to try to get a couple more montes this weekend and see what i can come up with:-)

I don't think its possible because you're not grafting the coral, you're trying to graft the xooanthelle algae(sp) which are what color the coral. And I'm pretty sure the algae likes to keep to its own kind (pigment).

Originally Posted by 04charedcompg

yeah thats what i was looking for! so thats all you do is set them close together? I tried this and had some die off on one of my monte caps thats why I was curious. That picture is amazing!! Im going to try to get a couple more montes this weekend and see what i can come up with:-)

you just want to watch growth rates -

your idaho grapes and red montipora caps grow much faster than other types of caps - so, start with smaller pieces of those if you can!! haha and trim them back... if one is 9", and the other is 1", the 1" one will loose to competition and die off, they like to be equally sized

Originally Posted by TimH07

I don't think its possible because you're not grafting the coral, you're trying to graft the xooanthelle algae(sp) which are what color the coral. And I'm pretty sure the algae likes to keep to its own kind (pigment).

The color doesnt come from the zoox it comes from the coral itself. The zoox only lends brown, gold color and thats only when the coral drops its pigments and you can see down to the zoox.

Originally Posted by 04charedcompg

yeah thats what i was looking for! so thats all you do is set them close together? I tried this and had some die off on one of my monte caps thats why I was curious. That picture is amazing!! Im going to try to get a couple more montes this weekend and see what i can come up with:-)

cool beans!!! will you be sure to take pics of the ones you pick up? oooooooohhhhhh......'ya know what would be even cooler??!!! if you start a new thread in this forum and show us step by step how you're doing this!!! now THAT would be awesome! (HINT)

Green and red seem to grow at fairly similar rates, I put two green caps and a red together on a single magnetic Frag, it ended up being one of my favorite pieces after it grew up.


Under blacklight:

Here's what it started out as.

that's pretty cool. The colors go together great!

spiny, we dont see your tanks enough. How about a thread on what you have going right now?

I could do that, I'm reefless at the moment, but in the process of setting up two nanos. I still have my freshwater and brackish tanks though.

Originally Posted by chris&barb

The color doesnt come from the zoox it comes from the coral itself. The zoox only lends brown, gold color and thats only when the coral drops its pigments and you can see down to the zoox.

Coral Reef Overview | Coral Reef Alliance

"Most coral polyps have clear bodies and their skeletons are white, like human bones. Generally, their brilliant color comes from the zooxanthellae living inside their tissues. Several million zooxanthellae live and produce pigments in just one square inch of coral. These pigments are visible through the clear body of the polyp and are what gives coral its beautiful color."

I have to second Chris, dinoflagellate algae ( zooxanthellae) are only colored by their photosynthetic pigments which are brown and gold. Coral tissue produces it's own pigments in various forms. This is perhaps best ememplified by non-photosynthetic corals which are brightly colored, but possess no zooxanthellae. In addition, brightly colored corals will take on a brilliant coloration after they bleach.

Thats incorrect Tim. Take a look at these articles which explain how corals get their colors.

Feature Article: Coral Coloration: Fluorescence: Part 1 — Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine

"it was once very popular within the hobby to associate all coral coloration with pigments found within zooxanthellae. While it is true that light absorbed by the photopigments of symbionts does play an important part in the overall coloration perceived by the human eye, it is generally a mistake to ascribe fluorescence to chlorophyll and a definite error to link it to peridinin, beta-carotene and some other photopigments (the role these pigments play in determining the apparent coral color will be examined in a separate article. Phycoerythrin is a notable exception as it can lend an orange fluorescent color to corals under proper conditions). Articles that state differently-colored zooxanthellae are responsible for fluorescence are misleading."

Feature Article: Coral Coloration, Part 2: Fluorescence: Pigments 510 - 565 and Notes on Green Fluorescent Proteins — Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine

Feature Article: Coral Coloration, Part 3: Pigments Responsible for — Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine

Feature Article: Coral Coloration, Part 4: Red Fluorescent Pigments, a Preliminary Report of Effects of Various Environmental Factors and Color Mixing — Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine

Feature Article: Coral Coloration, Part 5: Non-fluorescent Chromoproteins (CP-480 to CP-562) — Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine

Feature Article: Coral Coloration, Part 6: Non-fluorescent Chromoproteins (CP-568

Feature Article: Coral Coloration - Part 7: Coral Reflectance, Chromoproteins and Environmental Factors Affecting Non-fluorescent Pigmentation — Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine

"Some fluorescent or reflective pigments are associated with photosynthetic symbionts. Chlorophyll (most often found in zooxanthellae, for our purposes anyway) can, under certain conditions, lend a deep red fluorescent coloration. Another photopigment, phycoerythrin, can, in some cases, make the animal host appear fluoresce orange. Marienne is a reflective pigment found in cyanobacteria and can make clams or corals appear blue-green (Note that marienne is not known to occur in Tridacna clams. Tridacna colors are known to be due to the presence of refractive tissue layers)."

Feature Article: Coral Coloration, Part 8: Blue and Green Coral Fluorescence: Environmental Factors Affecting Fluorescent Pigmentation — Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine

"Major color patterns of reef-building corals are due to a family of GFP like proteins

Abstract Reef-building corals are renowned for their brilliant colours yet the biochemical basis for the pigmentation of corals is unknown. Here, we show that these colours are due to a family of GFP-like proteins that fluoresce under ultraviolet (UV) or visible light. Pigments from ten coral species were almost identical to pocilloporin (Dove et al. 1995) being dimers or trimers with approximately 28-kDa subunits. Degenerative primers made to common N-terminal sequences yielded a complete sequence from reef-building coral cDNA, which had 19.6% amino acid identity with green fluorescent protein (GFP). Molecular modelling revealed a `β-can' structure, like GFP, with 11 β-strands and a completely solvent-inaccessible fluorophore composed of the modified residues Gln-61, Tyr-62 and Gly-63. The molecular properties of pocilloporins indicate a range of functions from the conversion of high-intensity UV radiation into photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) that can be regulated by the dinoflagellate peridinin-chlorophyll-protein (PCP) complex, to the shielding of the Soret and Qx bands of chlorophyll a and c from scattered high-intensity light. These properties of pocilloporin support its potential role in protecting the photosynthetic machinery of the symbiotic dinoflagellates of corals under high light conditions and in enhancing the availability of photosynthetic light under shade conditions."

http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps_oa/m364p097.pdf

"Corals can acclimate to strong-light environments by
controlling the type and/or number of harbored algal
cells and their pigment content, and by adjusting the
complement of UV-screening, mycosporin-like amino
acids (MAAs) and antioxidant molecules (Falkowski &
Dubinsky 1981, Hoegh-Guldberg & Smith 1989, Iglesias-
Prieto & Trench 1994, Shick et al. 1995, Rowan et
al. 1997, Richier et al. 2005). A photoprotective function
has also been suggested for the host pigments that
are mainly responsible for the intense bluish, green,
or reddish hues of many anthozoans living in symbiosis
with zooxanthellae (Kawaguti 1944, Kawaguti 1969,
Wiedenmann et al. 1999, Salih et al. 2000)."