Fragged a ric.. no mouth in the frag. Chance of survival?

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Hey all.

Today I was attempting to cut my orange Florida ricordea with 2 mouths. Long story short, razor blade slipped, nicked my finger, and totally missed the second mouth. The cutting has what looks like none of the mouth in it, and the mother has only one mouth in it, so to the best of my knowledge I probably destroyed the second mouth.

SO! I believe the mother colony will survive, as ugly as it is, because it has a mouth. My big question.. how about the frag?

 

[seafansar]

I had a small frag like that, but it didn't survive. It probably depends on how big the frag is.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

My poor baby :cry1:

Oh well. I guess I'll see if it recovers. I still have the mother colony.. frustrating still.

 

[DontXtripNfall]

Don't lose hope!
When I frag my mushrooms I cut them with sharp scissors through the base. The bottom of the shroom heals in a couple days and will attach to rubble in less than a week. The foot on the original rock then becomes a new polyp. So as long as you have part of the base it may turn out for the best.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Yeah, we'll see I suppose. The frag is pretty small, but it looks like it's well inflated..

 

[funkpolice]

they can grow without a mouth. I've done it before, it does take a long time for them to grow a new mouth.
bill

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Thank you for the information Bill. Now, you say they "can" grow back without a mouth, but they way you say it makes me think that it's possible, but not probable. Have you (or anyone else) had multiple successes like this or is this somewhat of a long shot?

Thanks again for all the input guys.

 

[funkpolice]

I basically did the same thing you did and that mouthless frag did grow back, but it took forever. Before that I thought you had to cut through the mouth. So I'm not sure about the probability of survival, but if it does live it will grow slower than you are used to. Best of luck,
bill

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Just a quick update, the mother has healed up pretty well as expected. The frag hasn't disintegrated yet, so we shall see how it does. It looks pretty small and pathetic..

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Just as another update, the frag is still alive. I think it's actually doing well.

The tiny piece is about how the frag was cut:

For a while, it was just laid out long-ways like that, but now it's sort of pulling itself into a circle like most of my other frags have done. I haven't touched it since that day because I don't want to agitate it, but it looks promising now. No visible mouth yet, but I don't expect that for another month or so. We shall see.

 

[proenca]

mate !!

 

[forestal]

I have seen people as an experiment put mushrooms in a blender then put in a low flow area over substrate and within 1-2 weeks, carpet of mushrooms, if condtions are good, they can be pretty resilient, but as a rule fragging mushrooms and anemonae thru the oral disc, helps it feed sooner and grow quicker

 

[seanalfred1987]

My ric somehow fell off of where it was mounted and a small piece tore off. The piece that tore off was under a half inch and there was no mouth on it. Two weeks later, its doing fine and it grew a mouth. So I would say no worries, its will b ok soon

 

[whippetguy]

I've had two rics that I've taken off plugs and each time a small section pulled off and stuck to the frag plug with no mouth. Now I have 4 rics. Those remnants were tiny too.

 

[Roots]

Nobody noticed that this thread is like 3 years old! LOL :LOL:

 

[whippetguy]

New to everyone just reading it

 

[ddelozier]

I;ve got a project going on right now with non ric mushrooms. I did the blender trick, repeatedly with 3 different kinds of shrooms. Im working to carpet the bottom of a 29g frag tank with em. All the rock is quarter to golf ball size. Im hoping to get multiple shroom kinds on each rock. just for trading purposes hehe

 

[lbiminiblue]

I had a small frag like that, but it didn't survive. It probably depends on how big the frag is.

I had something like that happen. I had two perfectly happy green mushrooms. One was partially attached to the nearest rock and looked like he was going to get off the frag plug. Then, of course, a sea urchin bulldozed away the rock in the night. When i tried to put the rock back up, the little part attached to the other rock tore off and was left flapping in the breeze. He survived, even though he was no where near the mouth, and has now developed a mouth of his own. I don't think it'd be much different for a ricordea...