chopping up a favites?

[mkengr45]

I have a favites brain about the size of a large orange. The problem is that since it is so round the bottom area of it doesnt get as much light, and doesnt get as much food when I spot feed it. The top part looks awesome with great color and big round mouths, and at night the top part has a motherload of short tentacles out but the bottom area doesnt. I was thinking of breaking it up into several pieces so that the bottom area could get more light and food and eventually look like the top of the coral. The entire piece is very spherical and big, how should I go about cutting this thing into pieces?

Randy

[Brett Wilson]

Is it mounted on white sand? That will help reflect light up on the bottom part of it.

This is something I miss out on since I have black sand....

[dow]

TurboBrett,

Do you happen to have some pics of your black sand setup? Also, where do you get the black sand? It sounds like it would make for a very interesting setup.

[mkengr45]

the brain sets on a piece of live rock about 8" under the water. I am using 3 65w 50/50 PCs. I just figured that if I brome off the areas that were near the bottom and placed them any other place in the tank that they would get more light and I would be able to spot feed them better. Sound reasonable? How would I go about breaking it anyway. Hammer and chisle? Would the fragged pieces start to grow over other pices of rock if it started to gain more heads? Thanks for anyhelp you all can give.

Randy

[Andrew]

I fragged a declining platygyra? sp. brain with a hammer and chisel (months ago), though it wasn't a round colony. All three pieces are growing well/encrusting, and showing intense color. This is only one occurence of success though; It's possible to lose the entire colony by fragging it in this manner if it fractures badly.

HTH.

Andrew