It’s no secret that LPS corals enjoy a strong following with a wide cross section of the reef aquarium community, and one of the corals leading the charge has long been Homophyllia bowerbanki. We’ve documented the various color forms of this large, fleshy LPS coral many times over the years but one variety which is a perennial favorite is the various shades of orange that this coral comes in.
One aquarium shop in the Denver area Aquatic Art Inc. recently acquired a beautiful colony of sherberty-orange ‘Banki and decided that instead of selling the colony whole, it was too nice and deserved to be propagated. Owner Cris Capp telegraphed his intent to frag this nice orange H. bowerbanki and he gave us permission to record the fragging of this tangerine flavored colony and pick his brain for LPS coral fragging tips and tricks along the way.
With its heavy skeleton and closely spaced corallites, a bandsaw is really the only practical way to propagate this kind of LPS coral while preserving the shape and contours of the corallites. Aside from needing a specialized tool to cleanly divide up this coral, Bowerbanki corals are very fun, easy and durable corals to frag and should rebound within hours of the fraggin procedure.
As you’ve seen in this video of the orange Bowerbanki and the relocation of the giant Acro Efflo last week, we’re going to be engaging our local reef aquarium professionals a little more. If you enjoy this kind of content and the hands-on coral style, be sure to subscribe to the official Reef Builders Youtube channel so you never miss a video, we’ve got some very fun topics in the queue.
