| Difficulty | Moderate (tools matter) |
| Time Required | 20–30 minutes |
| Healing Time | 2–4 weeks |
| Best Method | Saw between corallites |
| Coral Type | Massive/encrusting LPS (Acan, Favia, Blasto, Candy Cane) |
Overview
Acans, Favia, Blastomussa, Candy Canes and friends grow as colonies of individual mouths (corallites) sharing one dense skeleton. Each corallite can become a new colony — but you have to divide the skeleton without mashing the flesh. A band saw or a rotary tool with a diamond wheel makes this clean and nearly loss-free; bone cutters or hammer-and-chisel work but cost you the corallites along the crush line. Candy Canes are the easy entry point: their corallites sit on separate branching stalks you can snip like Euphyllia.
What You’ll Need
- Band saw / rotary tool with diamond cutting wheel (ideal), or sturdy bone cutters
- Eye protection — skeleton fragments fly
- Frag plugs and gel glue or epoxy
- Iodine dip
- Meaty food (mysis, LPS pellets) for recovery feeding
Step-by-Step
- Plan cut lines through the valleys between mouths — never through a mouth.
- Saw steadily through the skeleton, keeping the coral wet. With cutters, take small scoring bites rather than one crushing squeeze.
- Aim for frags of one to three corallites with a chunk of skeleton under each.
- Iodine-dip all pieces, then glue or epoxy each flat onto a plug.
- Place frags low in the tank in gentle flow — these are low-light corals; do not blast fresh cuts.
Aftercare & Healing
Flesh retracts from cut edges for the first week, then re-inflates and slowly skins over the exposed skeleton. Target-feed each frag once or twice a week once the mouths open — fed Acan frags heal and multiply dramatically faster. Full recovery in a month; new mouths bud within two or three.
What Can Go Wrong
Receding flesh at a cut line: crush damage or algae colonizing bare skeleton — iodine dip and keep the frag shaded and fed. Brown jelly on a mouth: siphon it off outside the tank and dip immediately. Frag detaches: these are heavy for their glue joint — epoxy plus glue holds better than glue alone.
Related Care Guides
Acan Coral · Favia Brain Coral · Blastomussa · Candy Cane Coral · War Coral
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I frag acans and favia?
Use a band saw or bone cutter to cut through the rock skeleton in the valleys between the fleshy polyp heads, keeping at least one healthy polyp per frag. Glue the frag to a plug and let it heal in moderate light and low flow.
Will fragging hurt the mother colony?
No. Cut cleanly between polyps and both the frag and the parent heal over. Give both good conditions afterward and they recover in a few weeks.
Where do I cut acans and favia?
Cut through the skeleton in the valleys between the polyp heads, not through a head. Each frag should carry one or more intact polyps to grow from.