Fragging the Scoly I Purchased at Aquashella

In this video I attempt to show you the proper way to frag a scolymia or "scoly" coral as it's commonly referred to in the hobby. Fragging scoly's when they are juveniles is ideal. Some believe that younger specimens have a higher success rate when fragged because of the elastic growth properties they possess. Whatever it is, it's way over my pay-grade...so I brought in an expert. Ryan Cunningham from "Chummingsham Reef" walked me through this session. A huge thanks to Ryan for taking some time to help me! I was NERVOUS.
*Disclaimer: Do the proper research before fragging your scoly showpiece!*
📱 Socials:
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📢 Friends:
OSA Choice (Scott Crowe) - osachoice.com/
Chummingham's Reef - chumminghamsreef/
Aquashella - www.aquashella.com/
Inappropriate Reefer - kzbin.info/door/FnQVvK5udiF0-EcIUHMVAw
📽 Videos Referenced:
How to Frag Solymia Coral - kzbin.info/www/bejne/q2K0XmiqaKhnb9E
CORAL ADDED to the FARM | OSA - kzbin.info/www/bejne/e5mmgWOYZrGlmK8
7 Things Reef Hobbyists Disagree With - kzbin.info/www/bejne/imrCi6x6na2LqLM

[@jaeengle542]

So glad you were mentioned. Great Content, delivery, info and videos.

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Thank you for that compliment!! Glad you enjoyed! More soon - stay tuned 🙂

[@mermaidsreef8034]

The endings to your videos are the best.😂

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Just rambling...like the video needs to be any longer 😂

[@joereazor6743]

I'll have to visit that store when I get around to start a tank, I enjoy watching your videos, didn't know you were that close, I live down in DeSoto (south of St Louis)

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Yep! I'm in Columbia, IL. Corner Reef & Gateway Aquatics are the two closest to me.

[@jahsreef8386]

Love to see the update on how it went

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

You got it!

[@jle_reefer]

Ballsy Remy.... good luck. I’m excited to see your results. Great channel.

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Thank you!! Fingers crossed! 🤞

[@thereefinrican]

Good luck . Hope it heals up for you.

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Me too! It's been almost a week now and both sides are still doing well. Spot fed them last night and feeders were out. Fingers crossed!

[@atfinthehouse8631]

You are quite entertaining and quite brave with the scoly.

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Thank you!! I’ve got a good mentor. I let Ryan mess up and then I just do what works...lol 😂

[@kairoraiden6524]

instaBlaster.

[@racso415]

Is the update out already.? I just ran into this video through home feed

[@captcs0474]

I fragged a bleeding apple during a swap in 09, and I will say from experience, that those tiny scoly's that I've seen will take forever to grow to the size that was common 10 years ago. Tissue heals and returns to normal, skeleton takes a long time to regenerate. I just cut the scoly in half and would split the cost.

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

SO LONGGGGGG. Both of the frags have had very little growth so far. It was educational for sure but not viable if you own a LFS or are a vendor. Unless you've got hundreds and can afford to grow them out long term.

[@karennation3580]

@@BahamaLlamaCoral There is am LFS in my area selling like 1/4 pieces of scolys so he must be growing them and fragging them, so when I saw the title of this video I was thinking okay, I will buy one of his small ones and frag it and make good money but the bad part is that i would take 100 years to do so!!! LOL

[@luislopez3714]

Good video I heard about it but never seen people do it before.

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

It's all about getting the right piece. Smaller is better. Not to be confused with button or croc island scoly's either. When in doubt hit up Ryan or OSA! Thanks for watching!

[@Ghettosciences]

Hi I have a 3 headed war paint scoly, there are 3 visible mouths and I want to frag them. I'm guessing the best way is to separate each frag so that each one has a mouth? Would this be a less risky task as each will have a functional mouth?

[@saltymanos]

Updates??

[@flavioamorim4244]

Any update on this frag?!

[@brianculater6444]

Yo Remy!!! Congratulations on your first Scoly frag!!!! That is awesome, now you can start your own scoly fragging business lol 👌✌️ I didn’t shave before watching this video so for that I apologize lol Peace bro ✌️✌️✌️

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Thank you!! Gonna need these to grow fast if I wanna make a business, lol. Next video I'll shave. Promise. 😝

[@brianculater6444]

Bahama Llama Coral Are Scoly’s anything like SPS? Do the like lower nutrients or higher? Any other care tips you got I would appreciate, never had these before. Thanks Remy!! 👍

[@tattoodan4277]

Lol greetings from NS Canada brand new subscriber/reef keeper here and former tattoo artist fun fact about tattoo inks ……which hazel is actually one of the main ingredients along with rubbing alcohol and original lysterine mouthwash of the carrier solution that keeps the powdered pigments suspended in professional premixed tattooing inks a lot of blacks are mostly which hazel and will gag a dead skunk lol and I know for fact that at least in the past skin candy brand flame red as listed on the label had so much lysterine in it that I had customers ask me about why they could smell the mouthwash

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Thank you for the sub Dan! What kinda coral do you keep in your tank?

[@tattoodan4277]

@@BahamaLlamaCoral I’m currently keeping a large colony of purple hairy mushrooms and candycain I’ve got some assorted Zoas a couple of Favias a trachyphillea that I got bleached and have been nursing back to health some clove polyps GSP and a bowerbankie a couple of hammers and a blasto so far along with a few others in a 32.5 fluval flex and I’ve got 3 clowns a orchid dottyback a 3 striped damsel and a yellow watchman goby tiger pistol shrimp pair all living together really well although they don’t seem to have any tolerance for any other fish it’s been a wild journey and super rewarding especially with the corals that I got that weren’t doing well and managed to nurse back to health

[@georgecook1374]

I have a question, why not use some small rock piece to glue them to? then it will look way more natural then when putting its permanate home it will blend right in. just found your channel and am just about to hop in so don't beat me up to much if thats a stupid thing to ask.

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Not a stupid question at all! In this case I was a little nervous to mess with it too much until it rounded back out. If I do mount it to some rock work, it's big enough that it would cover the plug or small rock to look natural. Right now it's in the frag tank just chillin!

[@angelf289]

I recently bought 1/4 of scoly of world wide corals and I’m going to cut it when grow and change it for store credit to get more corals 😈

[@ifly65]

Hey Remi. Im in St. Louis south side. I am new to the hobby along w a local buddy. We have met frag guys that sell to the local stores. Whats up in St. Louis besides the stores we know of? I live by Corner and Gateway.

[@chipturd55]

You still in stl. I used toanagr gateway for Chad yrs back. Just getting back in to start selling again

[@cameronfleet3226]

When the scoly is fragged does the colour regrow the same pattern as the original? Or is the colour pattern changed?

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

The colors are the same. In this case green and red/orange. The pattern does change where it regrows. It's a bit of a surprise!

[@williampaskewitz5383]

Wow

[@ohsnapzitzmeng]

update?

[@jaredtandle2596]

Lol.. "... When they get stressed out by being out of the water or something like that" (like being sliced in half)

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Chop chop!

[@anthonyrodriguez6402]

Great content!

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Thank you!!

[@anthonyrodriguez6402]

Midwest reefers unite!

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

@@anthonyrodriguez6402 YES!! Where you guys at?

[@anthonyrodriguez6402]

Bahama Llama Coral Bloomington-Normal

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

@@anthonyrodriguez6402 My hometown! NCWHS alum.

[@SuperAirman24]

Any update on these?

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Yep! Mine is doing well still. I sent one to Inappropriate Reefer and he didn't have luck with it. Looks like we'll have to slice it again!

[@rosselraf]

How much witch hazel do you use? Is it 100%?

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

I just used a couple capfuls for 2-3 cups of tank water.

[@cgs00177]

do the scoly's need to be small to frag or can they be large as well?

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Ryans theory is that the younger the scoly the better. He likens it to a young person healing as opposed to a senior citizen. The younger person (or in this case scoly) will have a better chance of healing and in this case, surviving.

[@cgs00177]

@@BahamaLlamaCoral I can understand that. Thank you so much for responding! Enjoying your videos, learning a lot :)

[@Nick-lx6ci]

Any updates on the scoly frag? I’m interested in purchasing a frag but curious to see how long it takes to grow back

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Forever. Lol. They are so slow. This is why you usually don't see scoly frags or LFS' cutting them up, super slow growers. I still love it just the same!

[@allbuttonsmatter1797]

What does it look like now that its been 2 yrs

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

@@allbuttonsmatter1797 It's fully rounded out now but honestly, not a ton bigger.

[@chiraagshetty7164]

Hey man,do the tanks look that blue to the naked eye?or does it look that way just on camera ?

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

It's definitely not as pronounced. If you wanna see the fluorescence you'll need some blue spectrum in the light.

[@chiraagshetty7164]

@@BahamaLlamaCoral thanks for the reply...I'm gonna subscribe

[@roguepossum4239]

Ever heard of fragging a acanthaphyllia?

[@WhatTheFrag]

My scolys are looking a little nervous as I watch this video.

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

As they should be! Tell them it will be ok...the more the merrier!

[@gabesreef]

I was hoping it was the weeping willow. Didnt think this was what you were cutting

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Ha! That would make a good video for sure!

[@gabesreef]

@@BahamaLlamaCoral especially if you took a chunk and sent it to me, the croud would go so wild hahaha

[@trojon]

How did this end up?

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Great! Still going strong!

[@awsome2ish]

its been 9 months now, hows the scolys doing?

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Check out my IG, I just posted a pic of the bigger one. The other half got a new home last week. Not sure if it will make his video tomorrow or not but Inappropriate Reefer got the other half!

[@awsome2ish]

@@BahamaLlamaCoral just saw the video then. Btw have you ever thought about grafting a scoly?

[@cartilagehead6326]

The coral hobby’s going to have to get much better and more comfortable with fragging scolys in the near future. The Barrier Reef is being hit hard by climate change (look up the last few years of bleaching events) and it’s pretty likely that Australia and other coral-source countries will start putting restrictions on harvesting and exporting marine-sourced wildlife like corals in the next couple of years in order to protect their wild stocks. The original intent may not even be to crack down on coral harvesting, but things like illegal reef poaching in the national parks or fishing. I’m also a reptile enthusiast, and a lot of wide-reaching environmental laws with good reasons behind them often have ripple effects in places where people don’t even expect them. Laws about poaching or invasives end up putting breeders or sellers in legal gray areas that take years to resolve. Get ready to see prices on wild scolymia skyrocket when you can’t import as many anymore. Whomever cracks the secret of propagating and economically farming them (and I definitely believe that it can, and one day will, be done) is going to revolutionize the industry and probably make a good amount of money doing so.

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Both of these sections are still doing well. I think the issue, from a business standpoint, is that they grow insanely slow. If there's a way to speed that up or you treat it like an apple orchard it might be feasible but still a long shot.

[@cartilagehead6326]

Bahama Llama Coral oh absolutely, I was thinking of Christmas tree farms myself. Like, for it to work it would have to be somebody with the scope and scale of a WWC or Top Shelf, where you have a ‘secret scoly grow out room’ running with a 10 year head start before you’re able to start selling your G1 crop. Honestly, I think the biggest leap forward in the industry would be tissue/cell culture. Coral polyps have amazing stem cell characteristics (they can heal pretty much any injury, divide, and even reduce adult polyps to puddles of stem cells for the purposes of reproduction and adaptation). If we can get to the point where, instead of fragging groups of mature polyps, you take a single polyp, get stem cells from it, grow them out in media and then “print” little dollops of cells onto frag plugs...just imagine getting 500 or 1000 baby frags from a single mother frag at once, instead of having to split adult populations and wait for them to heal back up and grow out, etc....

[@assessoriacientifica1632]

And now?! Make an update video

[@alexandersonsalla333]

Any update?

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Still kickin! Growing slowly. Thinking about moving one of the frags to the lagoon.

[@BDM_Vb]

how do they look now

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

@@BDM_Vb Both still good! Scoly's grow so slow....

[@BDM_Vb]

Bahama Llama Coral any picture of video from them now im curious

[@Arie_Idaho_Reef]

What the hell is witch hazel lol?

[@Arie_Idaho_Reef]

Never mind u get into it at the end.

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Lol! I had no idea either! I just wanted to follow Ryan’s formula straight up. Hope it all worked!

[@Arie_Idaho_Reef]

I have a lot of tattoos and I still didn’t know lmao. Well I hope it works out for you. We shall find out soon!

[@reefing1016]

I fragged my master scoly successfully but I gunna be honest I freaked out almost cried Nd scared I just cut my money away

[@flammableelmo4966]

Man fragging a scoly making me nervous

[@htc148]

ha heee!

[@PuffDaddyReef]

Your content is top notch!!! Hit me up on Insta. I’ll be in STL again in a few weeks.

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Will do!! Thank you!

[@cheeseballs3825]

How to get reincarnated as a coral 101.

[@lear31awalker48]

first

[@BahamaLlamaCoral]

Confirmed. 😉